


Probably Good I Didn't Call

by ballym, orphan_account



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: AU, Alcoholism, Angst, Callum has OCD, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kathy is dead, Lexi doesn't exist in this one :(, M/M, Might be smut, Mutual Pining, Smoking, There's not a lot of plot, ballum - Freeform, don't even @ me about a schedule for this it comes when it comes, like seriously, phil is dead, slowburn, we'll see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:28:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23804629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballym/pseuds/ballym, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After Phil's death, Ben and Jay move into an odd flat left to them, hoping they've finally found a place to call home. Ben finds something better, as he begins to unravel the enigma that is their upstairs neighbour, Callum Highway.
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell, Jay Brown & Ben Mitchell, Jay Brown/Lola Pearce, Linda Carter/Mick Carter, Lola Pearce & Callum "Halfway" Highway, Whitney Dean & Callum "Halfway" Highway
Comments: 38
Kudos: 131





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I decided to post this, because a) I feel like it may just sit in my drafts forever if I don't, and b) to honest I do really like it. That being said, I can't guarantee a schedule for updating this - those who know me know what I'm like with schedules, but I hope you enjoy - this will be my first multi-chapter for Ballum (in prose).
> 
> The concept is based very loosely on the b-plot of the book 'Her Fearful Symmetry' - nothing that happens in that book happens here, but I feel like I ought to say that in case there's some real indie reader whose like 'omg u stole that!' yeah, I did pretty much what with Callum living with OCD etc, but the plot takes off as its own thing, and I really like it! I should also mention before we start, that I guess I do have quite a stylised way of writing, which isn't for everyone and I respect that, you don't have to carry on reading if you decide it's too slow!

Callum placed his phone down on the bed. The bed was an oasis. Around the bed, a sea of contamination swarmed and bubbled, hot like lava. Callum had been crouching on his bed, in nothing but a pair of long boxer shorts for four hours now. With him, he had his phone, half a loaf of pre-sliced bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a spoon. These were his only survival tools. Callum very much wanted to leave the bed. He had things to do; he had planned to get some work done, and he needed to pee. His computer was waiting in his office just down the hall, but he knew there had been some terrible accident in the night. The floor was swarming with filth; germs multiplied by the millisecond and the phantosmia of vomit was making him gag. Someone must have broken in in the night and smeared mucus all over the floor. _Why?_ He wondered. _Why does this always happen to me? What are the chances? Is it possible? No, it’s not real._ He thought, _But what can I do about it?_

As if he had asked the question aloud to a pensive audience, the answer came to him; _Count backwards from three-hundred in Roman numerals! Tap the headboard on every second odd number and the wall on every second even._ Of course! Callum began to comply with this self-made antidote, but faltered at one-hundred-and-thirty-two and had to start over. As he counted, the second part of his brain asked himself why he was like this. He lost track again, started again. The phone in front of him rang, but he kept on with his numbers. He didn’t have the time to start over, but it was important he got it right. He began to speak them louder, over the rings of the phone. It rang three more times before it went to voicemail. _Hello, this is the Stuart and Callum Highway residence._ We can’t come to the phone right now, but please leave a message and we’ll make sure to give you a ring. Callum really didn’t enjoy hearing his brother's crackling voice, but he didn’t understand how to change it, so the old message was there to stay. The beep finished, and then a pause.

“Callum?” It was Lola. “Come on, Callum, I know you’re there - you’re always there. Please pick up.” She sounded impatient and stressed. “Callum.” A click marked the end of the message. Callum realised he’d lost track of his counting again. He threw the phone across the bedroom, and it smashed against the wall and began to buzz. It had touched the floor, contaminated. Callum was horrified, now he’d have to buy a new one.

He looked up as the afternoon glow of the orange sun and green leaf filtered in the room. He was yet to escape the bed. The madness had dictated over him yet again. He sighed painfully - but in a great deal of sadness, and pure embarrassment, an idea came to him; If he moved the bed a couple of feet closer to the ensuite door, he could maybe leap to the bathroom. _Genius! I’m a genius!_ Even whilst speaking to himself, he knew how hopeless he truly was, and if anyone were to see him like this, he’d surely die of shame. _I’m mad._ He thought, as he continually moved his weight back and forth against the footboard of the heavy, ornate bed. It jumped about an inch and cursed the floorboards underneath as he did so. It took time, maybe hours, but it did move. Callum was sweating, fixated, yet blithe in his imminent progress. The moment his feet touched the bathmat, he knew he was free.

A few moments later, just as he’d finished peeing and had begun the (rather tedious) process of washing his hands, _water must be hot, soap must cover both hands, rub over one another twelve times, then repeat until you’ve counted to five-thousand and back._ Callum heard the squeak of his front door as someone pushed open, and then Lola’s footsteps moving about the dark corridor, looking for him, and calling his name. He waited until Lola was in the bedroom, before calling out a simple; “In here.” He carried on washing his hands as he glanced over his shoulder. Lola was pushing the bed back to its regular position and examining where the vanish of the wood floorboards had been ripped up, creating four little roads of sawdust acting like valleys through the mahogany.

Lola walked into the bathroom when she was done, and sat on the edge of the tub, looking up at Callum, who was counting lowly, to himself. Not wanting to break his train of thought, _she should know better than that_ , Lola waited a while before asking “Are you alright?”

Callum nodded after a moment as if trying to catch his breath. He hadn’t realised he’d stopped breathing; too many things to concentrate on at once. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve broken the phone, can you unplug it?”

Lola walked away, and then came back with the phone in her hands. “It’s fine, Callum.”  
“No, it’s...it was on the floor.”

Lola sighed. “So it’s contaminated?”

“Yes. Please take it away. I’ll order a new one.”

“Can’t I just decontaminate it for you? You could watch? Or, or -” She bit her lip. He knew as well as she did how pathetic this all was. The third phone in a month. “It just seems a shame to throw away a perfectly functional phone.”

Callum didn’t answer. The carbolic soap stung.

“Are you coming out anytime soon?” Callum scoffed. He couldn’t help it. He heard Lola snigger too when she realised her wording. “You know what I mean.”  
“I do.” He said. “I think it may be a while.”

“Can I do anything?”

“Please just take the phone away.”

“Alright. It was good seeing you, I’ll pop back soon. Before the Mitchell’s arrive.”

“The Mitchell’s?”

“Phil’s boys are moving in.”

“Oh.” Callum hadn’t gone to Phil’s funeral, try as he did. A feeling of guilt arose in the pit of his stomach, shaking him nauseatingly. Jokingly, he had once promised Phil he’d get outside the apartment before his funeral. The ‘his’ was left ambiguous, as to whether he meant Phils or his own, which was clearly a joke at the time, but it didn’t seem so funny anymore. Callum looked down at himself, indecent. He had hoped Phil could somehow know that he had tried his best. Callum’s best was rarely good enough.

When he looked up, Lola was gone. He didn’t hear the front door close, but then, he liked to keep it open. He focused back on the water. It was going to be a long evening.

The first call Callum got on his new phone was from Stuart. When Stuart had left, just over two years ago, he’d called every three days, then once a week, once a month, never. The only way Callum really remembered his brother’s voice was via the voicemail message. He answered on the seventh ring, as always.

“Hi, Callum.”

“Hello, Stuart.” He wasn’t angry, but he wanted to be. _Quick!_ He thought, _multiples of 72: 144, 216, 288 -_ He couldn’t do the next one fast enough. “How are you?”  
“I’m fine, I got a promotion. Someone else gets my coffee now.”

“I hope they don’t make it better than I do.”

“No one makes coffee here - it’s all bought from Starbucks.”

“Oh. Well-”

“I gave up smoking.”

“When?”

“Six days ago.”

“Lucky you. I’m jealous.” There was a mutual pause, and Callum wondered what it must be like to live without a vice. And he had many, many vices. Stuart seemed happy, which made him happy, but also free - and the only reason Stuart really felt free was that Callum wasn’t holding him back anymore. He thought that maybe he’d tell him how the most recent book was coming along, or how he could now go out onto the balcony, but still not the landing. In truth, it wasn’t such a big win, and he’d only managed it by tricking himself into agreeing to the loophole _The balcony is part of the property. The property is the apartment. Therefore the balcony is ‘in’ the apartment._ It simply meant that the furniture didn’t smell so badly of smoke anymore.

“I heard Phil died,” Stuart said, his voice small. “Sorry I couldn’t be there.”

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t there either.” It hurt to say it. Another stagnant pause filled the radio waves.

“Lola told me his boys are moving in.”

“Yes. Funny that. I always thought they were made up. Apparently not.”

“How old are they?”

“Our age, Or maybe a little younger.” At that, Stuart made a small cooing noise, and Callum knew what was coming next.

“Well, better bag one quickly. Tell me if they’re good looking - for you, I mean. I’m not-”

“I know.” Callum replied, before adding ‘Come home and meet them for yourself.”

“I’m not moving back. I can’t do that to myself. I’m too old.”

“I know. It was worth a shot.” Callum felt a small jolt in his stomach. He missed his brother, and speaking to him again felt so right - he was always afraid to call, it had been one of their rules. Stuart could call him, but he shouldn't call Stuart. It hurt, but Callum knew that if it hadn’t been implemented, he’d never stop ringing.  
They exchanged pleasantries and hung up. He picked up his pack of cigarettes and walked over to the front door, intent on sitting in the courtyard, perhaps chatting to Whit - but no.

Callum retreated back into his living room and slipped out the french doors. He counted to ten, before going back inside, and showering. He was proud. Ten seconds was a new record. Perhaps he ought to give up smoking.


	2. Chapter 2

Jay had always liked waking up early, much to Ben’s disgust, who, despite living the first twenty-four years of his life in uncomfy motel beds, was partial to a lie-in. They had lived the last month in some cheesy dump called ‘Lucky Nights’ - which Ben had made plentiful jokes about. Despite being much too old to still follow their dad around, both boys fell easily into the routine of their childhood once more, when they’d had no correspondence with him for almost a year. Ben had pulled Jay from his East End flat and into the car late one night, and they’d never returned. Jay wasn’t angry though. If Ben thought something was wrong, something was most likely wrong. 

And so it didn’t come as a surprise when they got the call that Phil Mitchell had been brought into hospital having had a heart attack, and of consequence, was dead. Surprisingly, Jay had cried. Ben had not.

The will reading had been interesting. Only the two of them, and an attorney, had been present in the Caf when they found out that all they had left to them was the car, which Ben had had for himself for years now and already considered his own, a bunch of unfiled and unpaid taxes, and surprisingly, a small flat in the completely unknown town of Hitchin. They had thought it was a joke because owning a flat all these years would suggest that the boys had a home. Were  _ entitled _ to have a home, they just never knew it. But the attorney had simply nodded and gotten the boys to sign some papers, before wishing them a safe journey, handing them the coordinates of their new property and leaving the establishment. Ben had said they should just sell it, take the money, and move back to London, but the fine print -  _ which of course you didn’t listen to _ , Jay had tutted, dictated that they could only claim any of the rights to the aforementioned list, car included if they contractually lived in the flat for one full year. It had been outlined on a single page, coffee-stained, in Phil’s own scrawl.

_ For my boys, _

_ I was hoping that this would be the life I could give you, I had it all planned out a couple of months after the accident, but work took a toll on me and I pulled you into a life of uprooting I never expected you to be a part of. If I could go back and quit that God-forsaken job when I started, I would. I want you both to know that from the off. I suppose you’re living better lives now, what with my disappearing act causing you to settle somewhere - so I understand if you’re wondering why I’m forcing this false home upon you. The best reason I can give is that I feel rather hopeful about you. I wonder what you might make of it all. I have left you everything in the house. Every photo, every journal. Perhaps you’ll be able to learn something about ourselves. About yourselves. You may find the conditions to be a little harsh, though you will have to decide for yourselves whether to accept the terms. I am trying to protect history. I am trying to prove my compassion. A bad thing about dying is that I feel as though I’m being erased. Another bad thing is that I won’t get to see what happens next.  _

_ I hope you accept. I find great pleasure in you two living there, as you should of all those years ago. I think you’ll like it. I think you may find yourselves. Jay, I know you’ve been studying again, but you are both autodidacts. The flat may do you some good.  _

_ I wish you happiness, and I ask for your forgiveness. _

_ With Love, _

_ Phil Mitchell. _

Ben didn’t like it one bit. He loved Jay and was proud he was considered family, yet something new rattled inside him, when he saw Jay’s name in print, and not his own. He thought that maybe at some point, his dad would prove his love for him, yet this letter seemed to open new wounds more than anything. He didn’t say any of this to Jay, who simply said they should look at the flat before they made any decision. So they drove North for Hitchin.

The car turned down a gravel road that cracked beneath the wheels. It felt like turbulence to Ben, who ground his teeth, frown set in stone. He could already tell that he wasn’t going to enjoy driving around this town. Ben liked smooth roads in wide expanses of land, not jumbled old houses crushed close together on narrow streets. It didn’t even feel right;  _ quaint village life _ was certainly too slow for him, always moving, always working to the beat of city life. Setting up shop in a million hotel rooms, each one a carbon copy of the previous. He felt claustrophobic. Ben opened the car door, the cold and wet of the outside world slamming into him, causing his brow to crease even further, and his eyes to squint. 

“I don’t see it.” He called to Jay, who was looking around with equal confusion, pulling his case from the back seat of the car. The small chapel was to the left, as the directions promised, and the stucco building was number 72. Between them was a steep asphalt path that seemed to descend at such an alarming gradient Ben could have mistaken it for simply the side of a ditch. The gloom below was born from the high wall of the church property, though the brothers stepped down meaningfully, careful not to slip. The little path rounded the corner of the stucco house, and a high stone wall with iron spikes set on top became visible. A little wooden door was set into the wall about a meter across, and Jay stepped forward to try the lock. The first key was not of use, rattling around the lock, in vain, but the second crunched the metal and sprung the gate from its hold. 

“Come on, Ben.” Ben hadn’t even noticed Jay disappear into the small courtyard, leaving him alone on the shadowed path. He quickly followed. Jay was standing with his hand on the doorknob, but he waited for Ben to catch up before he turned the handle.  _ Together. _ Ben thought.  _ We ought to do this together. _ He shivered. It wasn’t quite raining, but it wasn’t exactly not raining either. Jay opened the door. 

They stepped into the front hall. Contrary to the outside world, it was warm and neat, with wood panelling on the walls and a slightly aged laminate floor, off-white, with little freckles of colour. It was endearing. To the right was a closed-door, painted glossy white, with the letter ‘A’ painted on in gold. Just below this was a small card pocket, that held a neatly printed ‘Carter’. Ahead of them, a dim-lit staircase wound downwards,  _ to the basement, _ Ben supposed. There must be an apartment down there too. To the left, there was a small round table housing four empty baskets and a rogue umbrella, and left of that, the carpeted stairs leading to the next floor. Sat in the centre of the staircase, about one-third of the way up, was a peroxide-headed girl, who looked up from her phone when they opened the door.

“Hallo!” She beamed, toothy and wide-eyed. “You must be Phil’s boys! I was given a heads up you’d be arriving!”

She seemed way too chipper for someone who lived in such a place. Ben immediately didn’t trust her. “How did you know we’d be arriving today?” He asked, confused, his voice ruff.

“Oh.” She said simply, before starting guiltily down at her feet. “I didn’t. I’ve actually come up and sat on the staircase every day since Friday -” She looked at Ben, who looked at her incredulously. “You see, I wanted to give you a warm welcome. It’s a bit of a madhouse, but I can show you around? I’m Lola?” The way her intonation rose in pitch made it seem like a question. Ben didn’t say anything.

“- I’m Jay,” said Jay, breaking the deafening silence that had enveloped the room just moments before, “-and, and this is my brother,” he waited for Ben to introduce himself. He didn’t. “Ben.” Jay finished. “And yeah, we’re Phil’s boys, or well, Ben is, genetically - Phil took me in as a kid. we’d love a tour of the place.” Jay always was better at making a situation feel comfortable.

Lola’s smile cracked even wider, though Ben wasn’t aware one’s face could do that, as she bounced into a rhythm of explaining the local area. 

“‘Round the side of the building, there’s this wrought iron gate that leads straight out onto the sidewalk. It’s not technically the main gate because you’re supposed to use the courtyard - the one you used - to walk up to the building, but as you probably found it’s a pain in the neck to get to, pretty as it may be.” She didn’t seem to be taking any breaths. “So we all tend to just use that side gate - though you probably saw it on your way in.” Ben hadn’t. “That’s Mick Carter’s apartment there,” She said, pointing to the door Ben had noticed earlier on. “He’s this sarcastic wanker. That's a lie," She laughs, "he’s actually really lovely. Proper Cockney lad, moved here with his wife after some scandal in the pub they used to run - she’s got a bit of a temper, you see? Not long after, their son and his fiance move in. Couple years back there was this massive fight, they called off the engagement, and he left,” She took a quick breath, “But get this - it was the fiance who stayed. Her name’s Whitney. She’s my age. Anyway, Mick is the Property Manager, so if you need anything fixing, just tell him, he’s usually quite fast at getting things sorted.” She pointed to the letter ‘A’ on his door. “This is flat ‘A’. ‘B’ and ‘C’ are up the stairs, and ‘D’ is in the basement. That’s where I live.” Without saying anything else, she began to make her way upstairs. The boys followed. 

The landing was carpeted with a faded orange carpet that seemed too thick for its age and patterned with squares.  _ Like the one from The Shining _ . Ben thought. The light fixture hung from the ceiling loosely, and without a shade, making the whole room brighter than anywhere they’d been for the past God-knows-how-long. Ahead of them was a door identical to the Carter’s, but with a ‘B’, and ‘Mitchell’ printed beneath. Ben’s heart hurt when he saw how old the little plaque was, and he couldn’t help but imagine tearing down the bannister as a kid, Jay close behind him. He pushed the thought aside. 

“You boys are Mitchell’s too, aren't you? I know Phil was - obviously - but you can get that changed if-”

“We’re Mitchell’s.” Ben said, gruffly, ignoring Jay, who was clearly opening his mouth to contradict. He noticed that when she said apartment ‘C’ was also upstairs, she had meant up  _ another  _ flight of stairs, as they curved over the ones they’d just climbed. 

“Callum lives up there. Lola nodded at Ben noticing, his interest in the floor above. “I wouldn’t stop by unannounced if I were you. Callum is...Callum is a bit of a recluse. He extols his solitude.” Jay held his lips together tightly and nodded, understanding. Ben frowned at the floor. “So, I guess you can take it from here.” Lola cut in, searching for some kind of response she didn’t receive. “I reckon you’ll probably want to look around your dad’s place, you know...on your own.” And with that, she left the boys on the landing, and not a moment later could they hear the rattle of the original stained glass of the front door, as it shut behind Lola, and she left for the outside world.

“Shall we go in?” Asked Jay, wary.

The key rattled in the lock, and they were greeted with yet another long, narrow hallway. To the left, there was a mirror and a set of three coat-hooks, a jacket, recognisable as their Phil’s favourite hanging from the farthest one. Jay walked towards the nearest door, but Ben stood still, scoffing at the ‘Welcome’ doormat, and trying to imagine a universe where the Phil he knew would buy one of those. 

“Ben, in here.” Ben followed the sound of his brother's voice into a large room, which felt as though it were deep underground, or in murky waters; specks of blue light danced through the threadbare curtains, sending nonsensical shadows yawning across the room as though dark and light were in some kind of frenzy battle. It made him feel rather dizzy, and he swayed slightly on the spot. The room was very dusty but unpredictable. In the centre of the room, there was a plush grey sofa, and next to it, two Parker Loungers, made from a deep grey leather, and barely worn. _These chairs haven’t been used._ Ben’s brain supplied. _These chairs are new._ In the corner of the room was a wide television, and beside that, a bookcase, but what intrigued Ben most was the picture hanging in the centre of the feature wall; Him and Jay, on the hood of the car before he had fixed it up, and Phil, with an arm around each of them. It was an old photo. Everything here was old but unused. _What a waste of a home. What a waste of a childhood._ There was no colour in the room. Ben thought that perhaps it had all been locked away in some closet somewhere and that they only needed to find a key, and the whole apartment would spring back to life. Jay sneezed somewhere across the room, and both boys turned to the hallway, as though expecting to be caught intruding on the silence. No one came. At the far side of the room, a pair of french doors led out onto a small balcony with a wrought iron railing. Through it, they could see the chapel growing over the wall of ivy.

Next, a room that was meant to be a parlour, that Phil had converted to an office. Along the walls were shelves upon shelves of books - everything he’d collected over his years seemed to be in here, and in the centre, an ornate desk that seemed too posh for the Mitchell’s. On it sat an old computer amongst a sea of paperwork, and a dull builders mug with rings marking the long since evaporated coffee. The floor was wood, like all the floor they’d walked across since entering, but a dull green rug was placed off-skew, and the wheel of the office chair rucked it slightly. Ben wondered what Phil’s new job was. He picked up an embossed business card that somehow felt like it had the wrong dimensions. 

_ PHIL MITCHELL _

_ INQUIRIES _

_ pm.inquiries@HJS.org _

Ben had no idea what ‘HJS’ stood for, but the whole room had a prickling impression of privacy, and so the boys shut the door and moved on. The kitchen was old, but homey, and reminded Ben a little of their motel kitchens; the microwave seemed like the only appliance used, though he let that slide - it wasn’t like any of them had much time for learning to cook. _Perhaps we could now._ Ben shook his head. He didn’t need this. There were two bedrooms, of fairly equal size, one was rather plain; a double bed pushed against one wall, a wardrobe and a set of draws - all in muted tones of grey and blue, but it was the back bedroom that was truly the showstopper. They walked into a childhood room they never got to know. Bunk Beds with matching blue and green bedding were slotted against the far wall, with family pictures hung about, a bright coloured bean bag in the corner, a small personal television (box, but still.) The walls were printed with cartoon baseball gloves and balls, and the blinds were drawn back to let in light. The carpet was soft and thick, a bright green colour, and hung from the door was a sign reading, in childish calligraphy, ‘ _Jay and Ben’s Room’._ Ben didn’t like the feeling he got when he saw Jay’s name before his own. He didn’t look at Jay, but the sharp intake of breath over his shoulder told him everything he needed to know. “I call the master bedroom.” He huffed, leaving behind his childhood.

Ben tried not to think about how much work Phil must have put into the apartment as he kicked off his tight shoes and lay down on a bed that should have been his father's. He imagined nightmares. He imagined that, instead of being scolded when he woke up crying, images of the crash that killed his mother around inside his brain, that his dad ran to his room and wiped away his tears, scooped up Ben’s youthful body and tucked him into the large double, Jay too, and hugged together to sleep as children should. He imagined fighting Jay for the remote control or racing to the table for dinner. He imagined where the nearest school was, whether his dad had looked at enrolling them. He imagined his stroppy teen years, slamming doors and blasting music. He imagined college. And then he thought of Jay. Jay, who undoubtedly was going to take classes somewhere here. Jay who was going to find a job and friends. Ben was so proud that they got to share the life they did, truly, but it always hurt him that Jay seemed ten times the Mitchell he was when he wouldn’t even take the name. It was scary to see him being self-sufficient. Ben didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He imagined himself confined to the flat forever, and he fell slowly and deeply into an uneasy slumber.

He woke an hour later, and twilight had befallen the apartment. Jay was apparently in the other bedroom, asleep or on his laptop, but silent either way. The rooms felt odder now. Ben opened a closet in his room and found that it was a little walk-in-wardrobe, with little room to stand, but a full-length mirror on one wall. The closet space was mostly empty, but a couple of odd shirts hung, and three pairs of boots were in one corner. Ben tried a pair on and looked at himself in the mirror. He was old, for twenty-four; dark circles danced under his eyes, and he desperately needed to shave. He thought he looked more like his father than himself. Ben slipped the boots off, they were too large by perhaps half a size.  _ They’d fit Jay better. _ Not that Jay would feel the need to wear them. Jay had this closeness with their father that didn’t involve the need to impress him, to be a carbon copy. Ben did. 

He walked slowly as if he didn’t wish to disturb the hungry silence, and padded along the wood floors to the kitchen. Again, the storage space was practically barren. He found a bag of freezer fries, and a draw of odd spices and herbs, as well as a half-bag of dried penne pasta, though that was it. A draft caught him off-guard, and he shivered slightly, the hairs along his arms standing to attention.

“You cold?” Asked Jay. Ben turned to find him leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen. He looked groggy too, and his hair was a mess. 

“Can’t work out the heating,” Ben said simply, though he didn’t know why.

Jay nodded, and the brothers stood in silence for a moment, their faces cantaloupe in the filtered light under the chenille. Over his shoulder, Ben noticed an open window and walked over to close it. It looked out over the little courtyard, and a dark-haired girl was sitting smoking amongst the puddles of the long-past shower. He leant there for a moment, smelling a mix of petrichor and smoke, and wondered what was supposed to happen next. A street light flicked a little in the distance, and there was the vague sound of a siren somewhere far away. It was eleven o’clock in the evening. Ben needed more sleep.

“I like it here,” Jay said, his voice breaking a little. “I think this is exactly what we need.”

“Don’t you want to go back to school? Most people don’t walk away from that.”

“It can wait.” Jay declared. “I’ll take classes here. I want to live here. Phil wanted us to.”

“Not enough to show us when it mattered.” Ben wondered if he was always going to hurt the way he did at that very moment.

The statement muted the room. It was true.

“Let’s go and get our luggage.”

The boys subduedly left the apartment and began ferrying their bags up the stairs. By one, everything was upstairs and most of their belongings had been packed away. The apartment looked odd. The apartment looked  _ lived in. _ They stood in silence, wondering what the next year held in store.

“We can go shopping for food tomorrow,” Jay said, and Ben didn’t miss the excitement in his voice. A real food shop, where they could buy food that needed preparation.  _ Real meals. _ Ben thought, and then,  _ home. _


	3. Chapter 3

It was well past three when the wind really started to gather speed, hurling itself toward the single-glazed windows of the old apartment as if in dire need of escaping the outside world. The sash windows shuddered and creaked frightfully under the weight, though held their ground considerably given their dotage. The brothers had yet to figure out the old heating system - it didn’t seem to want to come on, despite Bens grumpy fiddling with the valves and switches not four hours prior. It was colder than it had been, and they were used to their overheated motel rooms - all evening they had gotten up to touch the ancient concertina radiators, and it had become ritual to frown at the other brother in a way of saying  _ ‘it’s still not working.’  _ when they only found them lukewarm. 

Ben slept in the master bedroom, with the heavy duvet doubled over, and a comforter at his feet, whilst Jay was in the room with the bunk beds, using both sets of bedding to block out the cold. Jay’s position seemed foetal, though he hugged a pillow fiercely; a lonely cry for company, whilst Ben spread himself across his bed, comfortable in solitude. He was, of course, dreaming they were on the road. He was always dreaming of the road, except this time his father was by his side, teaching him stick whilst Jay made faces in the backseat. It was a comforting dream that he often didn’t talk about, but it felt more real than ever, now that Phil was dead. He found it somewhat peaceful to sit and watch the view pass without any words of anger exchanged between them. Just the sunset and themselves. A world where nothing on the outside of the car mattered.

They were taking a turn onto their street - their old street - when the first drop of rain threw itself against the windshield. It never rained in dreamland. Another drop. And another - a storm was clearly on its way; it was harder to see now, and the wipers were not much use as Phil began to panic, the car swerving across the road as Ben held on tight, the sound of the rain deafening as it smashed against the metal of the car. In one frightful attempt of compassion, Ben ignored his father’s yells and pulled off his seatbelt to comfort Jay. Jay, who was nowhere to be seen - Where was he?  _ Where was his brother _ -

Water splashed Ben’s face. He brushed his hand against his cheek, still dreaming, when he felt it. Real water. He opened his eyes to a stream trickling down from a damp patch of the ceiling right above his head, wetting the quilts in a rather conspicuous manner. It took him a moment to understand the situation, but when he did, he was not happy.

“Jay!” He yelled from his bed, not wanting to move in case the miniature pour was simply a trick of the light, though the wetness seeping through the leg of his joggers seemed grimly sincere. “Ugh, Jay, wake up!”

This was followed by the sound of a groggy twenty-something moving about in his room, before seemingly  _ yelping _ and running through.

“Jesus Christ Ben, do we have a leak? The floor’s freezing with water?!” Ben was glad he hadn’t imagined it. He was also just slightly smug that his brother had walked barefoot across the wet linoleum tiles of the kitchen. He didn’t have a lot of time for being smug however, given that an unknown cause was probing the issue of their ceiling possibly collapsing under the weight of water. 

By this time, Jay had already rushed back to the kitchen to find a large washing-up bowl to place under the leak in the hall, and a bucket for the kitchen, and another for Ben’s bed. The sofa was pushed slightly out the way as well, to avoid water stains. 

“What the hell?” Ben grunted, pulling on yet another jumper, and habitually touching a radiator as he walked past. “This place is bloody haunted, I knew it. Dad bought the worst apartment in the middle of nowhere to punish us for something we had no idea about. I bet all his taxes are overdue too - “   
“Shut up, Ben,” Moaned Jay into his hands, blatantly too tired to put up with his brother’s conspiracy theories.

“Well, what is it then? It’s not raining.” Ben tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling. “Maybe the hermit upstairs was going to take a bath and left the water running?”

“So why’s it not leaking over here?” Jay had pulled himself off the kitchen counter and danced carefully around the puddles to the bathroom, and flicked on the lightswitch. He scrutinised the ceiling. “It’s completely dry.” He told Ben.

They looked at each other a while and then turned their attention toward the kitchen-pot, it’s water level was gently increasing as a steady stream from above disrupted its stillness. “Huh?” Said Ben, “I don’t know. But if it’s not rain and not an overflowing tub, I bet it still has something to do with that guy upstairs.”

“Ben, it’s late, maybe we should go and rouse this Mick Carter man. It’s about time we meet our Property Manager, and besides, we can’t just go marching into a blokes house in the middle of the night! We’ll look like madmen!” 

Ben was disgruntled at Jay’s lack of interest. To him, the solution was simple. “You do what you want Jay, go back to sleep for all I care, but I don’t fancy being drowned in my sleep by some hermit. I’m going upstairs.” 

Ben was already moving to pull his dressing gown and shoes on when Jay decided to follow him. “Fine Ben, but no shouting? First impressions matter, okay?” He let the door slam behind them.

The walk to the door was a minefield of old newspapers stacked by black bags filled to the brim with God-knows-what, narrated only by a hard scratching noise that made the boys toes curl. The door stood ajar. Naturally, Ben moved his weight in front of Jay, an unspoken means of protection Jay had long-since outgrown, but something Ben was not ready to break the habit of. Ben knocked. No one responded.

“Hello? Anyone in there?” Still no reply, but Ben could hear the muttering of a low voice, a man's voice. What was his name? He remembered Lola had said it in passing;  _ Cayden? Connor? _ It was something that Ben had no hope in hell guessing, especially when there were more pressing questions on his mind, like  _ Am I about to walk into a psychopath's lair? _ He pushed the thought aside as the scratching infiltrated his head again. A rhythmic, abrasive noise as though something heavy was being sanded. Ben stood with his hand on the doorknob, hoping Jay couldn’t sense his growing fear as he stepped into the dark. Phil always taught them to be scared of the dark. He imagined their flat below, filling up with water, and every last photo of his mother disintegrating with the tide. He opened the door and walked in, calling “Hello?” again as he went. 

The flat was very dim, with seemingly no natural or manmade light filtering in, despite it being a full moon. Ben immediately ran into a pile of boxes that filled the narrow hallway and had a sense of many objects oppressively close together. Somewhere, there was light, but not where Ben stood. The wood floor felt sticky beneath his slippers, and he could feel Jay’s breath against the back of his head, making his small hairs prick with apprehension of their next move. Ben began to navigate the boxes with his hand, like a blind man. He had lived in the apartment below for less than twenty-four hours yet was desperately trying to configure some kind of floor plan in the hopes of understanding this darkness better. He could smell cooked meat and melted cheese. The sweet smell of tobacco. The sharp, complicated smell of bleach-based cleaner. Rotting fruit; lemons? No, maybe that was the cleaning product again. He tried to sort out the smells in his head, breathing deeply through his nose. It was odd, the way he had trained his other senses when he lost his hearing, yet with the copious amounts of help received from his glasses and contacts, he’d always trusted his sight. He breathed in hard, again. Ben supposed Jay was doing the same thing, for the next thing he heard was a sharp intake of breath.  _ God, please don’t let Jay sneeze,  _ Ben thought, and Jay sneezed.

The muttering and the sanding stopped abruptly. Ben stood still. Jay stood still. The noises returned after what seemed like an eternity, and Ben let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His heart pounded, and he turned toward Jay, who gave Ben a gleefully sorry look. Ben looked over his shoulder to see if they left the front door open, but it had vanished.  _ Breadcrumbs _ , Ben thought.  _ String. We’ll never find our way out of here. _

The boxes soon disappeared under his fingertips as he carried on forward, and he stretched his hand out to feel a closed door. This would be the front bedroom if they were in their apartment. The noise was louder now. They crept down the hall. Finally, he stood in the doorway of the back bedroom, and he peered in. 

The man had his back to them. He crouched, knees bent, only his feet and the metal scouring brush touching the floor as he washed it. He looked like a man imitating some kind of burrower. Perhaps a hedgehog. He wore a pair of grey shorts, and nothing else. The overhead light was intense, much too bright for the small room, and the bed was huge. There were a lot of piles of oddly similar clothes on the floor in seemingly specific piles, and books stacked higher than the boxes in the labyrinth outside. Maps and photographs were pinned manically on the otherwise too-white walls, joined at different points with red string and drawing pins - so much so that the actual images were not visible in some places. Along one wall was a set of hooks, house to three coats; seemingly the same style; long and black, too bulky to be fashionable. Under the window lived a row of the same pair of shoes, eight times over. The man was reciting something in a foreign language as he scrubbed. He had a beautiful voice, and Ben knew that whatever he was saying, it was sad and violent. He wondered if he was a religious fanatic.

The floor was dark with water. The man reached into the pail and brought the scouring brush out full of suds and more water. They watched him in silence, and after a while, Ben realised he was simply scrubbing the same spot over and over again. The rest of the room remained dry, though they had passed wet patches in the hallway, so this was clearly not the first room the pail of water had visited. Ben wanted to say something, but he didn’t know how to begin. A heavy hand rested on his shoulder, and he looked to Jay, who returned his frown with empathetic eyes. Ben took a step back, and Jay took a step forward. Something ate on the inside of him, something was yelling that he shouldn’t let Jay take charge, that he didn’t need Jay taking care of him. But his voice was too afraid to jolt the man in front of them.

“Excuse me,” Jay said, softly. The man had his hand in the bucket and was so started that he jerked it over, spilling the water across the floor. The room stank of bleach. “Oh!” Jay said. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! Here, let me…” He dashed across the spreading water and into the bathroom, retrieving a set of towels, as Ben stepped back into the shadows of the hallway, unable to tear his eyes away from the man crouched on the floor. He watched Jay mop up the water with an expression of incredulity, almost stupefaction. Jay worked to contain the floor, using the towels as fabric dams. He dashed back for more to continue the mission with so much energy, the man seemed completely lost in his own home, and Ben thought this incredibly sad, and that maybe he ought to say something, but he didn’t know what to say. He simply stared.

_ Callum didn’t particularly understand why this man had barged into his house in loose flannel and slippers, but he felt relieved to see him. The overwhelming anxiety he was feeling was gone, though he couldn’t help but feel as though a pair of synecdochical eyes were burning the back of his neck like red-hot irons.  _

“Hullo.” Said the man, after seemingly an eternity of silence in the still-too-bright and now too-wet bedroom. He extended his hand to Jay, and he grasped it and pulled in courtesy. Ben noticed as his brother let go that his hand was stained red, and Jay clearly had the same realisation as he looked at the thin glaze of blood that was coating his hand. The man’s hand was red raw, though he had seemingly not noticed. Instead, he was frowning at Jay, who was glancing at Ben, who was staring at the man. He was a slender man, seemingly around Ben's age, though he looked older from the bags under his eyes, and the dark stubble that was neat, yet seemed overgrown on this man’s face. His hair was a dark brunette, but Ben saw past all that to his eyes. They were the colour of the sea on a cloudy day when the ocean is in darkness from the clouds above, and it seems grey and dark - but that wasn’t the right colour - the colour was where the clouds split, and the crepuscular ray turns the waves a silver so reflective it seems a crime to look at, and a scandal to look away.  _ Yes. _ Ben thought.  _ Yes, that’s the colour. _ He seemed kind.

“I’m Callum Highway,” He said.

“I’m Jay Brown,” Jay replied simply. “We live downstairs.”   
“We?” Asked Jay.

“My brother,” Jay explained, “Ben Mitchell. He’s standing in the doorway.” 

Callum turned and locked eyes with Ben, a little longer than necessary. “Ah yes,” Callum said, without breaking eye contact. “That would explain the shivers.”

“Sorry.” Ben coughed out, thankful his voice didn’t crack, though it may as well have.

“So what are you,” asked Callum, turning back to Jay, “lonely?”

“No, see, the water…”

“My bed’s right under here, your water came through the ceiling. It woke me up.” Ben didn’t spare any sympathy.

Callum blushed. “I’m terribly sorry. I’ll call Mick to fix it for you.” Jay gave Ben a side-eye that said something along the lines of  _ I told you so. _

Ben ignored his brother, and instead looked at the wet floor., then back at Callum. “What were you doing?” he asked.

“Cleaning,” he replied. “I’m washing the floor.”

“Your hands are bleeding,” Ben stated.

Callum looked at his hands. The palms were crisscrossed with open cracks from hours in and out of the bleach-water solution. They were shiny and bright red. He looked back up at Ben, but his attention was now on the boxes. 

“What’s in the boxes?” Jay frowned, feeling like Ben was probably not asking a good question.

“Things.” Callum replied. 

Ben abandoned tact. “You live like this?”

“Yes.”

“You’re one of those people who cleans all the time. Like Howard Hughes.”

It wasn’t a question. “Yes.” replied Callum.

“Cool.”

“No, it isn’t. At all.” Callum walked into the bathroom and found a salve, which he began to rub onto his hands meaningfully. “It’s an illness.” Ben felt as though he had made a faux pas, and the expression on Jay’s face said just as much. A knot tied in his stomach when he thought about the fact that he’d offended a man that had been nothing but nice to him. (Despite ruining his bedding.)

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right.” There was an awkward pause during which no one looked at each other. 

Ben began to feel nervous, as though scarabs were scuttling down the collar of his jumper, ready to burrow deep into his back.  _ I was right before - he’s mentally ill. _ He said, “We should probably be heading downstairs. Empty out the buckets.

Callum nodded. “I’m sorry about your ceiling. I’ll ring Mick first thing in the morning tomorrow. I would come down myself -”

“Yes?”

“But I never leave my flat.”

Jay was currently staring at a spot on the floor that was apparently rather interesting. Ben was disappointed, even though he was intent on getting away from Callum just moments before. “Not at all?”

“It’s part of...my illness.” Callum smiled, and it was rather lovely. “Don’t look like that. You are quite welcome to come and visit  _ me. _ Though I do like a day’s notice. And an ETA.” He began to guide the boys through the maze of boxes. When they arrived at the front door, Jay opened it, and both he and Ben stepped out onto the landing. Callum did not. “I hope you visit again.” He said, with something that sounded a little like panic behind his voice. “I knew Phil rather well, you see.”

Ben stood on the well-lit landing and peered at Callum, who hung back from the door in his dark hall. “Okay,” he said. “Sure.” Their eye contact seemed to linger again. Ben looked away, and Callum looked to Jay.

“And you are welcome as well, Jay.”

Ben blushed, as he realised that the original invite was perhaps not open to both of the brothers.  _ Implications _ . Ben thought wistfully. He felt a tiny pang of possessiveness. Usually, in this instance, it would be for Jay, but something was different. Perhaps he was worried that if Callum got to know Jay, he would ignore him. Or something like that. 

Jay smiled. “I’ll see when I’m available.”

“It was nice to meet you.” Stumbled Ben, desperate for the last word, before he pushed the weight of himself, and Jay, down the steep staircase, and out of sight. 

The ceiling was still dripping, and the quilt was a sodden mess. The brothers stood together and surveyed the damage. “So what was that about?” Asked Jay, a smirk playing on his tight lips.

“What was what?”

Jay ignored the question. “What do you think about him? He seems mad - and you were right about him being a hermit.”

“Yeah, but in a nice, eccentric way.” Ben looked anywhere other than the grin that was forming on Jay’s face. “He was crazy, sure, but he was super polite, don’t you think?” Jay didn’t say anything, so Ben changed the topic. “Do you reckon I need new bedsheets?”

“No, it’s only plaster - it should rinse out. Maybe we could soak them?”

Ben put the plug in, and turned on the taps in the bathroom. He eyed up the lounger, wondering how comfy it would be to sleep on. Probably somewhere between a zero and three out of ten.

“You could always sleep on the bunk bed for the night.” Said Jay, who wasn’t facing Ben anymore, and it was making him uncomfortable in an  _ I-don’t-know-what-you’re-up-to _ sort of way. Jay continued, “Do you prefer top or bottom?”

Ben slept on the lounger.


	4. Chapter 4

Incandescence woke Ben at sunrise, and it took him a moment to reassociate his body and mind, locating _where-the-hell_ he was. House. Home. Something like that. The hanging clock of the living room read three-past-six, and after the night they’d had, he knew there was no way he was getting back to sleep anytime soon. Slowly, as if emerging from his final stage of metamorphosis, Ben moved to the kitchen, flicked the switch on the kettle. He marvelled at the quiet. Moments later, he had taken his steaming mug, blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and sat barefoot and cross-legged on the balcony. _Yes,_ he pondered. _Home._ The light was still off in Jay's room when he cracked the door open and popped his head in - a pang of fraternal spirit flowed through him, and then he moved on quickly. He really had to let Jay go.

In a jolt of inspiration - and given that there was nothing for him to do - he showered and dressed, and grabbed his wallet to head out and find a twenty-four-hour petrol station, or corner shop. He thought maybe he could make breakfast. On the landing, he took a moment to glance upwards, where the stairs kept on to what truly felt like some kind of other dimension. Maybe it was due to everything happening during the witching hour, but Callum’s apartment - and Callum himself - seemed to transcend all of that madness. He was the kind of man you only read about or watched on daytime television, but somehow here they were, living below him. Ben thought about his offer to visit him, and he desperately wanted to. Ben was wholly intrigued by the strange man, he wanted to know everything about him. His feet itched to climb the stairs, but no. _Not now,_ he thought, _Callum asked for notice. Humour him._ Ben expected that if he were to get to know the man, he’d be humouring quite a lot in the coming months.

Ben, for someone who claimed he couldn’t cook, had managed to cook a ridiculously intricate breakfast. Late on paper crockery with the butter seeping through sat toast, bacon and scrambled eggs, beans and sausage, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, as well as unopened yoghurt and fruit and cereal and oats. He didn’t know what Jay wanted, but he knew he sure as hell could do with a lined stomach after the night they’d had. 

Jay stumbled in around half past eight, wearing a Central jumper and odd socks. Ben was creating a mess, hacking at an orange in an attempt to juice it. 

“Jay!” Ben grinned, “Goodmorning, sir! Tuck in, there’s plenty.”

Jay gave Ben a look that suggested he was less than impressed. “What’s all this? You just pretending we didn’t meet that guy last night?” Ben watched as Jay bit back whatever term he originally planned to use. “What are you doing, making all this anyway? You don’t even eat yoghurt. Or fruit.”

Of course, Jay wasn’t being mean on purpose, Jay was never mean on purpose. But he was hurting Ben’s feelings. “You eat yoghurt.” He said. “You eat fruit. I thought we could eat together this morning, the first day in the flat, you know...as a family.”

“I can’t,” Jay said simply. “Not this morning; I have an interview with the Head at the community college. I emailed them for a prospectus when we first got the will, I’m sure they’ll let me in, and it’s not really much but I liked studying, you know? I’ve got to keep my brain switched on for when I go back to Uni.”

Ben frowned. “And are you? It seems only yesterday you were saying ‘all that can wait’ and ‘I like it here.’ Do you not like it here, Jay?”

“I’ve hardly been here!” Jay replied. “It’s...it’s a dream come true! A lost childhood. But we’re not kids, Ben. I need to think about my future. Maybe you’re okay rolling down the road, fixing cars and gambling your petty cash away, but that’s not me. I want to make something of myself-” Jay didn’t mean that he knew instantly that he didn’t mean that at all, but Ben had already felt the bullet.

“So I don’t feel the need to be thousands in debt for the sake of a poxy bit of paper, and that makes me worth less, somehow? I didn’t go to school, Jay, because one of us had to work. Who pays your fees, Jay? Because it certainly wasn’t _my_ dad.”

“Yeah, I know-”

“-No, Jay, I don’t think you do -”

“Ben!” Jay snapped, shutting his brother up. “You’re tired. You got no sleep. I got no sleep. I’m stressed about this interview. It’s early. I didn’t mean what I said, I’m just…” 

They were both exhausted. Jay took a slice of toast and some juice. They ate in silence. Jay left to shower and get changed. Ben went out to smoke again. 

The day seemed to crawl by on its hind legs, as though it were an injured animal. No matter what Ben seemed to do, he couldn’t pass the time, yet there was some kind of ineffable force binding him to the apartment. For some reason, he just couldn’t bring himself to leave. He peeled back some wallpaper in the study to find some wood panelling. He put his bedsheets in the washer, in hopes the plaster wouldn’t water stain. He wondered what it might be like to never ever leave the apartment again, and he wondered if he should ask Callum. He didn’t.

At a quarter past twelve, when all the breakfast food had gone cold and rubbery, Ben made his way out to the too-bright hallway. Lola was coming down the stairs from above, a frown on her face, but her eyes lit up when she noticed Ben.

“Good morning!” She beamed, chipper as ever, “I just heard from Callum that he met you two boys last night! How exciting!”

 _Was it really?_ Ben wondered, but then scrapped that for _yes, it really was_. “Err, yeah, I guess so. He’s a bit…” Ben couldn’t find the words, so he didn’t.

“Different?” Lola supplied, as though she did this every day.

“Yeah.” Ben said, “Different sounds about right. Interesting though, I mean, not in a bad way either.”

Lola laughed, raising an eyebrow for just a fraction of a second. “He said he liked _the short one_. Said he found him interesting...I’m guessing that’s you?”

“Short?” Ben scowled, but then again, he had been standing behind Jay. Also, he was short. “I wasn’t polite.” He scrunched up his face a little, in shame. “Jay is always so much better with talking to people. Making them feel right.”

“Well this conversation seems to be going fine, and I don’t see your brother around, fighting your battles.”

Ben smirked, “Heck, Lola. It’s only day two. You coming on to me?” 

Lola grinned. “Not a chance.” She laughed. “Say, did you two have different mums or something? I’d never have guessed you were related or did you just get lucky, dodging the ginger bullet?”

Ben smiled, then toned it down a little, realising he might actually be enjoying the conversation. “Different mum.” He said, simply. “Different dad, too. I don’t know, Some distant relative was friends with his real parents when they died, he moved in with that guy - that’s when I met him, we were nine or ten at the time. My dad had just gotten remarried, and we had the money, so he adopted him. The rest is history. He’s stood by me when no one else would. Or could.” Ben suddenly felt the guilt of their breakfast row seep through his thick skin.

“That must be nice,” Lola said. “I’m an only child. So was Whit. I think it’s why we get along. I didn’t know Phil married more than once, he never said.”

“He was married four times,” Ben says, happy somehow that he has the upper hand in knowledge about his own dad. Recently it felt like he was the last to know that kind of thing. “Almost five. Has a daughter, too. By a different woman. I never really met her. To be honest, I never really knew anything about anyone. After my mum died we were moving house every few weeks. Saddled into whatever care we could get, whilst he was out all the time.”

“That sounds…” Lola trailed off and scrunched her nose a little.

“Shit?” Ben suggested.

“Yeah, shit.”

“When did he buy this flat, anyway? Jay and I never knew it existed.”

Lola frowned, as though Ben had said something completely opposing the truth, not that he knew what it was. “He didn’t buy the flat, he bought the whole building.” She said as if spelling it out for him. Ben wanted to dislike her for not thinking he could keep up, but was glad, seeing as he was in fact completely lost.

 _“What?_ ” He asked, incredulous.

“Yeah, I thought you would have known something about it. It’s why me and Callum can afford to live here - or me, anyway. Callum’s job pays well. Phil bought the place, and rented it out for way under asking, he screened us and everything, he was just...a really good bloke. The Carters moving in was a game changer though, Mick took over as the property manager, because Phil was so busy with work, and then eventually handed the place over completely, with the exception of his flat. Less than a month later, he died.” She shivers slightly but is grinning all the same. “We think he’s haunting the place. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Ben couldn’t process what she was saying, his mind caught and reeling over one single comment. _He was just a really good bloke_. Ben’s forehead was furrowed deep with frown lines. _Was he?_ He looked back up at Lola, who was standing directly under the bulb of the landing light, and the air around her seemed to spark like a halo. She was wearing one of those fashionable jumpers that felt like a teddy bear, except it was so orange it hurt Ben's eyes, and the sleeves were pulled in a way that made it seem baggy in all the wrong places. 

“Do you want a cup of tea?” He asked, completely on autopilot. He realised how stupid it was, to ask someone, who was already being held up from going somewhere, and who he’d never met until just yesterday, into his flat. She was absolutely going to say no.

“Yes.” She said, smiling. “Do you have any biscuits? 

They sat on the balcony in a similar fashion to how Ben had earlier that morning, Looking out to the chapel. Ben hadn’t thought to buy any biscuits when he’d gone shopping, but they’d managed to find an unopened packet of gingersnaps in the back of a cupboard, which worked in a pinch. It almost didn’t matter, what with the gentle sun hitting their necks and faces, as the early afternoon warmth began to evaporate the puddles. In clear daylight, Ben took in his surroundings a little more.

Beyond the chapel was a small graveyard, overgrown, like the rest of the building, but oddly beautiful. Their courtyard was empty. Whitney was not there, and Ben had yet to meet the Carters; everything was still. A gentle hush was drawn from the small trees, whose shivers were countered only by the orchestra of birds. Ben couldn’t identify any of them but imagined they were a little more nuanced than the typical pigeon. He rolled a cigarette and offered it to Lola. He rolled a second for himself. He thought it was quite wonderful how a girl who could talk as much as she did, could also appreciate the silence.

“It’s nice, up here.” She said after a while, on an out-breath. “I forget how nice it is here sometimes, what with living in the cellar.” Ben nods, he doesn’t feel the need to verbalise his response, so doesn’t. “Do you think you two’ll stay?” She asked.

“Don’t know,” Ben said, simply because he didn’t. “Jay’s enrolling in some classes down at the community course. He’s studying business marketing or whatever in London, but he said he’d take a break. I’m not really sure what he wants.”

“And what do you want? What will you do, if you stay?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a career guy, you know? I just work. I fix cars. I can do that anywhere. Doesn’t matter.”

Lola raises an eyebrow at him, “How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-four.” He replied, “I know what you’re gonna say. In my prime. Try new things. I don’t need to, I’ve been taught how to survive, and I can do it anywhere. It helps if I can do it in a place I don’t have to pay rent.”

Lola laughs, before drawing again. “I think that always helps.

In the time between Lola leaving, and Jay returning, Ben finds a hoover with the face worn off at the back of a cupboard under an ironing board and a horrifically old fashioned trouser press, and he decides to begin cleaning the flat. If they’re going to live in it, then it might as well be well, livable. He vacuums all the rooms then has a fight with the nozzle until it detaches, and he can use it to suck down the cobwebs, and dust from the shelves. He then pulled back all the curtains, made his bed and washed up the little chinaware they used during breakfast. He smoked three more cigarettes, and opened his laptop, looking for what places delivered food locally. He settled, as he often did, on pizza. He snooped around the bookshelves in his dad's study but felt uneasy so shut the door again. He realised Jay had never said what time he’d be getting back but had been gone for hours. Seven-thirty came and left, and Ben ordered the pizza. He still made sure it was the kind Jay liked too. He remembered when Jay used to come home late after hanging around some girls' place, and how his dad never said two words about it. Ben bit into his lip, to stop himself from blubbering. _Don’t be weak._ He thought _Why is that so hard?_ He loved Jay, he really did, but when the food arrived, he ate without him.

Ben then found a bottle of Jack in the cabinet beneath the television. _Tut tut._ Phil really had blindsided them all when he promised he’d given up. Ben opened the bottle and began to drink.

“What the fuck?” Ben woke suddenly. The french doors were still open, and the room was cooler than it had been previously but still warm in comparison to their first night. Jay was stood over Ben in the lounger, an unimpressed look on his face. “Did you even leave the house today? It’s a mess.”

Ben wanted to object that actually he’d tidied, and how there wasn’t any dust to make them sneeze every two seconds anymore, but he looked at the knocked open pizza box and the crumbs were strewn across the floor, and couldn’t defend himself. The clock read twenty-two-past-eleven, _Why was Jay only just getting back? Where was he?_

“I was going to say we need a serious conversation about what’s going to happen here. I presume you’ll want to stay for the sake of keeping the car, but we need to sort some ground rules.” Jay sniffed the air, his nose scrunched, before pulling back slightly. “Jesus, Ben have you been drinking? Take a shower. You’ll end up like that freak upstairs.” Something snapped in Ben. Maybe it was to do with the amount of alcohol in his system, the bottle was more than half empty. 

“You can’t say shit like that, mate,” He started, getting to his feet and almost falling in the process. “He’s ill, you can’t say shit like that.”

Jay scoffed. He wasn’t mean on purpose “Just yesterday you were calling him a hermit, you’re telling me you what? Spent the day with him and became besties? Or did you just shag him?”

“Shut _up!_ ” Ben yelled, physically shoving Jay back. “Jesus, you say you’re my brother but then you go an’ say stuff like that, you’re, you’re, _you’re just like him._ ”

“Fuck off, I’m not. Don’t say stuff you don’t mean. You’re drunk, Ben. Who does that remind you of?” Jay had him there, and he knew it. Ben felt sick.

“What am I meant to do?” He asks “Sat around all day, thinking - like the idiot I am - that you were gonna come back? That we’d figure things out together, sort it. Enjoy it, even. You’re meant to be my brother.”

Jay takes a step back with a grimace, rolling his eyes. Shadows crept in, and the room rapidly darkened. “I’m looking out for myself. That's what you taught me, right? Number one. I get that you’re lonely or lost or whatever, but Phil was a dick to you, you have to stop idolising him. Maybe you need time to mourn, and maybe you don’t, I don’t know how you could love a man like that. Get a job, put your brain to something, I don’t care, but you’ve got to snap out of this state you’ve been in.”

“I lost my dad _a month ago!_ ” Ben croaked, raising his voice again.

“You’ve been like this for _years,_ Ben, it’s got nothing to do with his death. You’re just stuck on loop. It’s sad, I know you’re worth more. Look at me - Ben, we came from the same background, and I’m getting higher grades than the kids with the Mercedes you clean.”

“I don’t clean cars, Jay, I fix them. I fix things.” Ben desperately needed to cry. _So, so weak_. He hated himself. He wondered if the neighbours could hear their yelling. He wondered if it was making Callum anxious. Muffled shouts drifting through the floorboards. “Everyone else already thinks you’re better than me, Jay,” Ben said, quieter now. “Don’t make me think you believe it too.

The sigh Jay let out led Ben to believe he did. “Come on,” Jay all but whispered. “You know that’s not true. But let's talk in the morning, yeah? It’s been a long day.”

Ben nodded but opted not to reply.

“Maybe if we stay, we can go buy a new bed for me, because I am not enjoying my feet sticking out over the end of that kid-size one.” They end up at the doors of their respective rooms. “Not going to bed angry yeah? We can fight tomorrow but we’re okay now?” There's fright in Jay's eyes.

“Not going to bed angry,” Ben repeats. He has so much more to say, and it hurts that, comforting as this may be, Ben knows it’s a tactic Jay uses to stop him from saying anything honest. They’ll resume in the morning when Ben is subdued by sleep and lost his train of thought, enough that Jay has the upper hand, at least. 

_Weak._ His brain reminds him. _You’re just too weak._


	5. Chapter 5

The banging in Ben’s head had not gone away, in fact, he was sure it had worsened. He looked at the bottle of Jack half-empty on his bedside table, and the stained shirt he was crumpling under the dead weight he was carrying. Slowly, as though he were being spoon-fed his memories, the night before trickled back to him. The fight. Jay and Ben fighting, without a middleman to stop them. He also distinctly remembered losing, though he was sure he had some good points, he just couldn't for the life of him remember what they were.

“You want to keep the car,” Jay says, over breakfast.

“Yes,” Ben replies.

“So we have to keep living here. I don’t want us to kill each other, but we’re not kids. And we’re not who we used to be either, or at least I’m not.” Ben tried to pretend that didn’t sting as much as it did. “I’m going to go out and buy a bed. I’m also gonna find a gym. Maybe somewhere I can take some shifts. I’ll find the library and print some CVs, hand them out.”

“Okay.”

“I think you should do the same.”

“Okay.” Ben had never felt more subdued. He just felt lost, and like there wasn’t a hope in hell he could pull himself out of his dissociating. “Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.”

“Are you going to stay in the flat all day, by yourself? I’m not gonna be here, did you hear me?” Jay jays, mock waving his hand in front of Ben's face. It was not appreciated.

“I heard you. I’ll be fine.” He says. “I’ll go out tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Jay agrees, “Just don’t become a hermit too, yeah?”

Sometime after nine, Jay leaves the flat, and Ben feels completely alone, letting the hours pass him by.

Without really knowing what he was doing, Ben found himself making his way up the steep staircase to the second floor, it wasn’t until he had almost reached the top, that he saw Lola making her was out of Callum's hallway. He didn’t see the man himself, but he did hear a distinct _“Goodbye.”_ Come from somewhere inside. A moment later, and Lola had spotted him. He was stood three steps down from the landing and was about waist-height to the floor.

“Oh, hello Ben!” She said, her temper bright, as always. Today she was wearing a neon pink jumper, that sported those holes in the cuffs for your thumbs. It hurt to look at in the bright light. “What are you doing here?” She asked, frowning ever so slightly.

“Oh,” Ben said, in place of an answer. He didn’t know what he was doing. “I thought I’d come and see Callum, maybe? Properly, I mean.” He was stumbling on his words. He liked Lola and hoped that this weakness wouldn’t make her start to dislike him.

“I just saw him.” She said, “He’s doing fine.”

Ben’s brow furrowed, “So, we have to take turns to see him, or what? I can’t just knock?”

“No,” Lola said, moving towards the stairs ever so slightly, causing Ben to go down a step. “I mean, you could, but he can feel a little...iffy if he’s not prepared. He likes notice, so he knows what to expect. The other night…” She trailed off, “I think you ought to give him notice.”

Ben nodded, his lips parted slightly. “How do I do that? Slip a note under his door? I don’t have his number?”

“You can pop a note in his mail basket in the foyer. I take his post up every day. If you’re not busy now - and I presume you’re not - you could come down to mine and write it. You’re quite good company, you know.” She smiled pristinely, and Ben felt like he might have to tell her about his persuasions, so as to not get any ideas.

“Yeah, sounds good to me.” He says instead and starts to make his way down the stairs. When they get to his floor, he steps to the side, so she can take the lead, and guide him the rest of the way to her flat. As he walks past the front door, Ben slyly glances over to the little baskets on the round table, wondering what he might write, as a second first impression for Callum.

Lola’s flat was...anachronistic, to say the least. Whilst the entrance and landing seemed more dated than his or Callums rooms, the building held a sense of decorum; its interior fitted with the setting in which it had grown. Lola’s decorating, however, seemed so kitsch it couldn't be considered anything but out of place. They stepped straight into the living room from the low-ceiling-ed hallway. There was a couch against one wall, with a blue tie-dye throw covering it, and an armchair beside, with a shaggy pink blanket, tucked in a similar fashion. A corner of one arm peaked through, showcasing a dated floral pattern, which made sense considering it matched the footstool that was staked with lifestyle magazines. There was a glass coffee table, that made Ben realise, for the first time, that no one bought glass coffee tables any more, and that they perhaps weren't even ‘modern’ _whatever that meant._ A small flatscreen was hung on a feature wall, and the entertainment system doubled as shelves for even more magazines. Two doors, both shut, lined the wall to the left. Ben presumed a bathroom and bedroom, or maybe a utility closet if there was an en suite. Across the room, behind the armchair, was an arch that led to a galley kitchen, in which Lola was putting the kettle on, giving Ben time to snoop around some more. 

The entire flat felt sad. Besides the throws and the magazines and a laptop with its lids covered in stickers, nothing really screamed _Lola_. It was as though everything had sat for years, and shed just come along, chucked a blanket over it all and called it home. She smiled at him as she left the kitchen and moved towards the armchair, holding two mugs. They were dainty and had scientific diagrams of flowers on, with labels, and the Latin names written in cursive. They looked like they could have come from a care home. Or a charity shop.

“Here.” She said, passing Ben a mug, and urging him to sit. He did so. She tucked her feet up on the chair.

“How long have you lived here?” He asked, silently hoping she’d say sometime recently, and that she’d simply not gotten round to redecorating.

“Six years?” She said, almost like she was trying to recall. “Got the place when I was eighteen.”

“And did it come...decorated?” Ben knew he wasn’t being delicate with his words, but he was making an effort.

She grinned, and he was glad she wasn’t offended. “Ha, no, I mean, Your dad rented this place to me, and he was gonna chuck all the furniture that was left here out, but I was young and broke so I asked if I could keep it. Sold me a bed, sofa set, wardrobe...everything really, for fifty quid. When I printed my first article, he gave it back.”

“Article?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding to the magazines. “I write a regular column in _Lifestuff_ , and I freelance articles in a whole bunch of other magazines and blogs. I tell you, writing about hair makes a whole lot more than just chopping it.” SHe laughs.

“So, if you’re making loads of money, why don’t you, I don’t know? Buy a new sofa?” Ben laughs nervously.

“I will at some point, but right now I’m saving. I know what it’s like to have nothing and live each day at a time, and given that I don’t know if this is just fleeting success, I’m not splashing the cash until I know I’ll be safe if things go sideways. Plus, I’ve managed to shape that sofa in the perfect way, for maximum comfort.” She scrunches her nose, and sips her tea, a sly smile playing at her lips.

They sit in silence for a moment. “What’s wrong with Callum?” Ben asks.

“Nothing’s wrong with him,” Lola replies firmly. “He has OCD.”

Ben frowns. “Doesn’t everyone get _OCD_ about certain things? Triggers or whatever?”

“You don’t _get_ it, it’s a disorder. He’s been diagnosed.”

“So why can’t he just take medicine? Why are you all just humouring him when he could be getting fixed?”

“Don’t say fixed.” She says. “And it doesn’t really work like that, the medicine, I mean. There is stuff he can be taking, but for him to get it, he’d have to see a doctor, and for him to see a doctor, he’d have to admit to himself that the way he’s living at the moment is problematic.”

“With all the boxes?” Ben asks.

“With all the boxes.” Lola agrees.

Ben wants to ask what’s inside them, he wonders whether that’s too personal. “What’s inside them?” He says.

“That’s too personal.” She replies.

He nods. “I want to write him that letter now.”

Lola grabs him a notepad and a gel pen that turns out to be sparkly and green. She laughs, saying it was a joke and that she’ll get him another one.

“No don’t,” he grins, “I think it suits me.” They laugh and Ben moves so he's sat on the floor, leaning on the table. Lola tidies some of the magazines away before joining them. She explains that he’ll need to explain his request with concise writing, and Callum prefers to not have to interpret meanings. He’s not very good at reading between the lines. 

_To Callum,_

_I wanted to say sorry for the awful first impression, I shouldn’t have just walked into your flat and I apologise if I gave you a fright. I would like to take you up on your invitation to reintroduce ourselves, and wondered when would be a good time to visit._

_Your (apologetic) neighbour,_

_Ben_

It seemed straightforward enough, if a little boot-licky, but Lola agreed that Callum would like it, and Lola seemed to be his closest friend, So Ben folded the note in half, and wrote Callum’s name on the outside. He knew it was pointless, seeing as it was going straight in his mail basket, and that Lola, who had seen him write it, would be the one to deliver it, but for whatever reason, Ben felt compelled, so simply did.

When Ben got back up the flight of stairs, he found the door to the flat on the latch. He thought perhaps Jay had left suddenly, but couldn’t imagine where he’d go. He doubted he’d be up for jogging in the cold - it looked like there was a storm coming. He also didn’t know why he wouldn’t just take a key. Pushing the door open gently, Ben stepped into the hallway. It was odd; the flat didn’t feel like home yet, and there was always this uneasy feeling of intruding slipping down the back of his neck. He called out. 

“Jay?”

“In ‘ere!” A voice replied. It made Ben’s heart freeze only slightly; he had no idea who was in his bedroom. Slowly, he moved toward the door and pushed it open. Stood on his bed in socks, jeans, and a paisley shirt _an odd combination, but who was he to judge_ , was a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a fair amount of stubble. Something in the back of Ben's head murmured _at a push, I would._ He pushed that thought aside for the more pressing matter of who the hell this man was. By the plastering spatula in his hand, Ben could presume it was the property manager Mitch, _no_ Mike. _Why was he so bad at remembering names?_

“Er, hi?” Ben began, hoping the man would introduce himself and save him from the embarrassment.

“Hiya, mate. Sorry about this, I knocked but figured you was both out somewhere. Let myself in.” The man said, carefully stepping off the bed so he could extend a hand to Ben.

“I’m Mick Carter. Live downstairs.”

“Oh yes,” Ben nodded. “I’m Ben. Here to fix our ceiling?”

Mick nodded, “Yeah, ‘Alfway rung us up yesterday about it, but I’d already promised the Missus I’d take her down London so this had to wait. I hope you’d understand, not a great first impression, leaving you with a leaky ceiling an’ all.”

Ben nodded absentmindedly, but his mind was whirring, caught on Micks earlier words. “Sorry, Halfway? I thought his name was Highway?”

Mick grinned. “Yeah, no you’re right. We just call him ‘Alfway because he always gets halfway to the door before turning back.”

“Oh,” Ben said. After the conversation with Lola, he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Mick seemed to sense his discomfort.

“Oh, oh no! It ain’t nothing to do with making fun of his OCD, we all love the bloke. We’ve been calling him this for years. He’s super intelligent when it comes to stuff he’s got a vested interest in, but whenever we’d be going anywhere, he’d always forget little things - keys, phone, you know? Stuff like that. Have to turn back a million times. Sweet really.” the answer comforted Ben a little, he wasn’t sure why. Callum seemed to be a storybook character to him. So unreal, yet so intriguing. He liked that.

“So, the ceiling?” Ben said, hoping his intonation would make it sound like a question, though he wasn’t particularly sure what he was asking.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mick said, in a way that sounded like he was correctly answering. “The plaster is pretty much done, just need it to dry a little.” He elaborated. “I always get confused about which one is the one that dries white, and which dries that kind of sandy colour, so if in a couple of days it ain’t white, call me and I’ll slap a coat of paint on it to match it in with the rest of the ceiling.”  
“Okay,” Ben says, feeling like the moment was oddly parental, and he ought to snap out of that.

“And hey,” Mick continued, as though he didn’t really need a response. “I know I own the building now, but this place belongs to you guys. Tear up the carpets, paint the walls, whatever, it’s all yours, I’m not coming in here with any rules or anything - wouldn’t want to upset Phil from beyond the grave!” He laughs.

“Did you know him well?” Ben asks.

“Yeah, I’d like to think so. He was here a lot. Did more for me than you’d believe.”

“I’m not sure I can believe the Phil I knew did anything for anybody,” Ben says simply. Mick laughs at that. 

“Hey, why don’t you and your brother come round for some grub tonight? My Missus is a shocking chef, but when you just gotta shake the bag and stick it in the oven, not much can go wrong, eh? And that way I can introduce you - to Whit too, she said she spied you the other day. Too many of these residents smoke, in my opinion, but what can you do?”

“I think,” Ben stopped, he wondered whether it was presumptuous to agree on Jay's behalf, especially when they seemed to be at each other's throats. He did want to learn more about his dad, however, and who said Jay had to come anyway? It was him who said they needed their own lives. “I’d like that a lot.” Ben decided. “And I’ll mention it to Jay too.”

“So the other ones called Jay, yeah?” Mick said. He was busy sorting the plastering bits back into their case. “I think I saw him yesterday, ginger right?” Ben nodded. “Gotta say, I only knew bald Phil, can’t really picture him ginger, that being said, I really can see him in that lad. You not so much, besides the height, might have dodged a bullet there.”

Ben felt his lungs puncture at the thought of being so detached from his own father, but decided not to let it show. “Yeah well, If I were to get anything from Phil, I wouldn’t have put his height on the list.” It hurt to laugh.

“I’ll be off now then - but I’ll lay a couple o' extra places at the dinner table, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey.” It’s sometime later, Ben is sat on his phone in the living room, and Jay walks in, he loiters in the doorway a little. “Did you do anything today?”

“I saw Lola,” Ben replied. “Went round hers for a bit.”

“Did you go out?”

“Met Mick Carter from downstairs too. The ceiling’s fixed.” He says. “Mick invited us round for dinner tonight, do you want to go?”

“I don’t know, I was going to watch the football…” Jay begins.

“I’m going to go.” Ben said, “It’s polite and neighbourly and if we’re staying here, which it seems we are, then we should make an effort to get to know them.” He continues. “You don’t have to come.”

“I’ll come,” Jay replies. “Maybe we can learn a bit more about this place. What Phil had planned for us.” Ben nodded, somehow feeling less and less like the protagonist of his own story. _Don’t get annoyed at him_. He thinks as he goes to change his shirt. _Jay isn’t doing anything wrong, you’re just mad at yourself. Don’t get annoyed at him._

The Carter’s flat was easily the largest, and Ben felt like something in him had been put at ease, now that he had snooped around the whole building. Mick was wearing the same thing he had on earlier. His wife Linda, however, was quite something else entirely. Ben didn’t believe he’d ever seen that much pink being worn on someone at one time, and he felt almost like he was meeting a more fashionable Umbridge, her blonde hair in a large doughnut on her head, something that seemed too youthful for the age she was clearly pretending she wasn’t. She almost disappeared as they made their way through to the dining room, which was painted pink, one wall sporting an oversized print of flamingos that made the whole room feel claustrophobic, despite the large multi-paned windows lining one wall. She smiled large, before disappearing through to the kitchen, where she began to hum along to the radio, and clatter dishes. The men sat down. Jay introduced himself to Mick.

“We wanted to bring a bottle,” Jay said, despite it wholly being a lie. “But we couldn’t decide on red or white.”

“No matter, son,” Mick laughed, shaking his head as the dark-haired girl, Whitney, joined them at the table. “We’re a t-total household.” He said.

Whitney was playing with one of her oversized earrings. She scoffed. Ben threw a curious glance at her, and she met his stare.

“Well go on girl,” Mick says, “Introduce yourself then, don’t just sit there.”

She threw a glance over at Mick, before turning back to the boys and smiling wide. “I’m Whitney.” She said, “Mick and Linda graciously took me in after their son decided to leave me before we even got to the altar. I’m not bitter.”

“Surely that’s better?” Ben said, under his breath. He felt Jay kick him under the table.

“I’m sorry?” Whitney asked, eyebrows raised. 

“I said,” Ben began, really wishing he hadn’t said anything, “Surely it’s better to be left before the altar than have the breakup be so public that all your friends and family are there?” 

“That’s what I tried telling her.” Linda entered, holding a dish with what looked like the driest piece of meat in the desert. “We said, it’s sad it’s over, but when one door closes, a window opens. She was set to be our daughter and even if it’s not legally accurate, our daughter she’ll remain. Always got a place at the table, ain’t that right, MIck?”

“What?” Asked Mick, who was staring at something on his phone, “Oh, yes. Always.”

They began to eat and Ben tried to imagine anything but sandpaper, but as the ironic process works, it was the only thing going through his mind as he swallowed down the food. He tried to catch Jay's eye, to see if his experience was any better, but he seemed to have his eyes trained directly at his plate, and Ben didn’t blame him.

“So,” Linda announced after a little while, “Have you met the others? Lola? Callum?” She says. “Lola is a sweetheart, I always say to her you shouldn’t keep dying your hair like that if you want it to stay nice. Too much bleach and your hair just falls out - I don’t know why a pretty girl like that would want to mess with her hair like that, mind you, Whit here used to have  _ red  _ hair, I mean, can you imagine!” She laughs, “Oh and Callum, you must meet him - he’s a proper little oddball but ever so sweet, and he’s _ gay _ , which of course we are totally fine with - our Johnny is gay. Johnny is our son. Not the one Whit was going to marry, that would be silly, no, we have two sons around your age, and a daughter, and then little Ollie too, though he’s been stayin’ with -”

“El.” Mick cut in, and Ben let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “The boys don’t need our life story, do they?”

“No. Sorry. We don’t have guests often.” She says, more subdued. Ben thinks about what Lola said, how they had some  _ incident _ in a pub. He made a mental note to ask her more. “But you have met them?”

“Briefly,” Jay answers, and Ben thinks it’s a little unfair, given that he’s spent more time with them, but then he remembers that Jay hadn’t been around to witness Ben’s growing friendship with Lola, and how was he to know he couldn’t get Callum out of his head. According to Jay, both introductions had been passing. “Lola showed us around. Ben’s been getting to know her.”

“Ooh,” Linda purses her lips. “Do you think something might happen there? You’re both good looking and young-”   


“I’m gay.” Ben said bluntly, and Whitney stifled a laugh.

“Well what about Callum then, you’ve met him?”

“He caused our ceiling to leak,” Jay replied. “We went to his flat to see what he was doing and he was bleaching the floors. Cleaning like crazy.”

“Sounds about right,” Whitney replies.

Jay frowned “And he said he never leaves his apartment? The way Lola described him, we were calling him a hermit, then we saw how he actually lives. It’s mad isn’t it?” Whitney chuckled again.

“Hey.” Ben objected, somewhat sternly. 

“What?” Jay laughed. A look was passed between Mick and Linda, but it went unnoticed by the boys.

“Hey, I don’t think it’s right to call him mad.” Ben expanded.

“And what? Ben, you don’t know him, you don’t need to get defensive.”

“I, I’m not getting defensive, I’m simply saying-”  _ Don’t be weak, Ben _ . But he didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t know enough about anything to put across the point he didn’t fully understand, and there was no way to make his thoughts succinct and so he might as well -

“Hey, come on now,” Mick stepped in.  _ Thank god Mick stepped in _ .

They were sat in the living room sometime later. Linda was showing them a photo album full of people they didn’t know, or care about.  _ Baby picture, baby picture, Butlins, moving house, buying a pub - _

“Wait,” Ben said before the page was turned again. The photo was of a group of people; Mick and Linda front and centre, two women to the side, then an elderly man, a short round blonde, and  _ Phil _ . 

“Oh yes, there he is.” Linda beamed, the photo clearly dragging up memories. “We were thrilled when he sold us that pub - The Queen Vic. We stayed there until we moved here.”   
“He had a pub?” Ben asked, feeling like every time he asked a question, in place of an answer he just got ten more. 

“He never worked there.” Mick chimed in, “He just owned it. Owned and rented a lot of places. That’s why I was surprised that he left your flat vacant. Was like it was just for you’s two.”

“Do you know what line of work he was in, at the end? And I mean, I know he did dodgy stuff, that doesn’t scare me, I just feel like I don’t know him.”   
“Phil kept to himself, ‘e said he wanted to fix problems he caused. That’s why he did what he did. Said that is he had to money, he might as well put it to good use. Look, we don’t need to go prying -”

“Don’t we?” Ben said, suddenly more frustrated than what the situation called for. His dad had been dead a month, and nothing was fixed. He didn’t feel any worse, or any better. He just felt like himself, which was, as Phil had taught him, the worst possible thing he could be. “I’m sorry.” He said. “I think I just need a little time alone.

It wasn’t until he was out the flat, and sat on the staircase between his and Callum’s floors, that he finally felt able to breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I mentioned that I had most of chapter 4 and 5 written, and then I posted 4 and realised that what I wrote for 5 should actually mostly be in 6, especially because there were quite a few bits that I didn't get round to fitting into 4. essentially what I'm saying is that I didn't expect this chapter to exist, and then suddenly I look at my word count, and this is the longest chapter yet, so I guess some things needed to be said haha.
> 
> \- any mistakes are my own


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, there was a strange sense of anticipation worming its way through the pit of Ben’s stomach, a feeling similar to when it’s bright and sunny outside, but you just know a storm would be approaching. Ben knew something was going to happen. He thought about how he’d promised Jay he’d leave the house, but he’d heard his brother leave hours before, so it didn’t seem like there would be any argument that morning. Things were tense, but they were only tense because they were new, and it was Ben’s fault. He blamed a lot on his dad, but he had a responsibility to control his own temper, and it was something he struggled at.  _ A Weakness. _ He stared at his reflection in the hallway mirror for a few moments. He was looking older. He wondered if his hairline was receding. Maybe Lola could tell him how to fix that. He enjoyed spending time with her and writing the letter to Callum.  _ Callum. _ Suddenly he had a reason to leave the flat.  _ Callum _ . The irony was not lost on him, but his name spun like satin in his mind. 

Ben pulled his shoes on quickly, eager to see if he’d had a response.

He was like an overexcited puppy, bounding down the stairs to the lobby and more importantly, the mail baskets. There was not a lot in Jay and Ben’s; due to never settling, they weren’t the sort to sign up for useless shop cards and magazines, but Ben knew he’d subscribed to something rather wonderful when he pushed his fingers between the pizza flyers and bills to the small brown envelope with the words ‘Ben Mitchell’ written in beautiful cursive. Staggering backwards, Ben let himself sit on the third step, to open the letter. Inside was a pocket-card, a small printed illustration of a robin sitting on a snowy postbox adorning the front. His breath caught a little before he opened it, and read;

_ Dear Ben Mitchell, _

~~_ MERRY CHRISTMAS! _ ~~

_ I do apologise for the card, I was short-of-time today, and wanted to answer you swiftly, as to not keep you waiting. I completely forgive you for our first meeting, it was more my fault than yours. To make up for this, I would very much like to invite you for afternoon tea, tomorrow at three o’clock. I look forward to introducing myself properly. _

_ Your (more apologetic) neighbour,  _

_ Callum Highway. _

And it was that simple. Ben was going to have afternoon tea with a complete stranger he, for some reason, couldn’t get out of his head. Sheer fascination with the unknown had caused Ben to  _ write _ to the stranger that ruined his bed linens, arrange a meeting, and perhaps make him his first self-made friend in Hitchin. (Lola didn’t count, because she forced the friendship on the boys the moment they walked through the door, not that Ben wasn’t glad of it, especially after their chat the day before.)

“Ooh, What’s that?”  _ Speak of the Devil.  _ Lola had turned the corner from the dark stairs that led down to her flat and poked her head up to see Ben holding the letter that she had clearly placed in the mail basket only moments before. Ben absentmindedly wondered whether she had been hiding around the corner, seeing how long it took before he got the message. He silently wished he hadn’t run down the stairs _ quite  _ so eagerly. 

“This.” He said, holding the letter up to her face, “Is what I believe to be a one-way ticket down the rabbit hole.”

“Calm down, Alice.” Lola joked playfully. “He hasn’t talked to anyone new in a long time - I think that maybe you’ll be good for him. Bring him out of his shell.”

Ben smiled at that. It wasn’t often he was told he was good for anything, and being good for Callum seemed to warm him especially.

Lola bounced over to the front door and opened it, staring out at the heavy clouds looming low and dark in the sky, she asked; “Do you think it’ll rain.”

“Yes,” Ben said. He thought she’d turn around, and take the umbrella off the small table, but she did no such thing.

“Good.” She said brightly. “The plants need a good watering.” And with that she was gone out the door, the glass rattling behind her. Ben wondered how on earth someone could be so overwhelmingly positive all the time. He liked it a lot. It was new. He then wondered whether he ought to tell Jay, but decided not, after the way he’d reacted at dinner the night before. Learning Callum was gay was only going to make things worse on that front, and Ben didn’t want Jay asking questions, especially when neither of them had properly apologised, though Ben desperately wanted to.

The next day, Ben stood on the too-bright landing, staring at the faded carpet, at seven minutes to three. He had said on his note that he’d arrive at three, and, though eager to leave the apartment downstairs, he had a slight feeling that arriving early wouldn’t go down too well with the host of apartment “C”. Ben tapped his foot, catching a glimpse into the dark apartment through the crack where the front door was left open. He wondered why Callum did that, why he was unafraid of burglars or murderers coming in. Ben made a mental note to not bring that up. Three minutes to. He felt as though he were counting down to a rocket launch, and the next few moments were fully agonising as he watched the second's hand circle the clock face.  _ Three...two...one. _ Ben knocked on the door and entered slowly.

He wondered what Jay would think of this. When the ceiling was fixed, Jay had nodded, an impressed frown drawn on his face.  _ “Now he’s not indebted to us. You can quit worrying, Ben.” _ Ben had no idea why it was so important he befriended a man who, not three days prior, he’d acted so hostile toward. Maybe that was it.

Ben was wearing a maroon shirt and a pair of jeans that probably should have stayed in the washbasket. Callum, he noticed, was wearing a shirt and tie, with seemingly freshly-pressed trousers. “Do make yourself at home - take off your shoes!” Callum smiled crookedly.

“Oh, no it’s fine,” Said Ben courteously.

“No, really,” Callum said, smile unbreaking. “You should take off your shoes.”

Ben abruptly realised it was more of a request than an offer, and quickly untied his boots, and set them by the door of the apartment. 

“We always eat in the kitchen,” Callum said, moving through the house. “We do have a dining table, but the parlour is full of boxes now, so in here is just fine.”

Ben was surprised. “We?” He asked, “Do you have a family?”

“I’m like you, I live with my brother. Stuart.”

“Oh,” Ben said He didn’t really believe that Callum was a real person, with relatives. He thought that maybe he’d just popped out of thin air, or maybe sprouted from a cabbage patch. “Is he on holiday?”

“I suppose you could say that. He’s working up north at the moment.”

“Has he been gone long?”

“Two years.” It wasn’t the answer Ben was expecting, though looking around the apartment, it didn’t feel real. In the light, Ben could see that practically every room had boxes methodically stacked. Every window was newspapered over, and the french doors had a large black sheet hung over them like a widow's veil. The whole apartment was tinted grey. All the light was artificial and too bright for someone like Callum.  _ Callum would look so different in the twilight, or autumn sun, or rainy dawn. _ Ben shook the intrusive thought like he was shrugging off a coat. It was not something he needed. He was interested in Callum, but in the same way one is interested in old art at a gallery; like you’re not quite sure how it came to be the way it is, and how the way you interpret it is completely different to how someone else does. And how, despite all these things, it’s pure, unfiltered beauty shines through so clearly that one could recognise it a mile off. The small round table had been set with two places, Ben took the seat closest to the door.  _ Fight or flight. _ He scolded himself for thinking it, but he did. 

The concept of two full-grown men having afternoon tea was an odd one, but the cucumber sandwiches were passable, and the fondant fancies an oddly nostalgic item Ben had never before tried, and the tea was hot and fresh. The way Callum’s face lit up when Ben raved about the food told him so much, and he couldn’t help but enjoy the older man’s company. 

“How long have you lived here?” Ben asked, between bites.

“Ages now,” Callum replied simply. “I had an absent father, and no mother, really. Stuart is fifteen years older than me. When I was thirteen he got me out of that house and said he'd be looking after me from then on. He wasn’t much good, but I owe him a lot. Said he found a guy that was willing to rent him a flat when he told him about me - that’s your dad, Phil. He rented us this place..”

“And have you always…” Ben didn’t know how to word it, “...Stayed in?”

“That’s a more recent development.” Said Callum. “I used to work at the local museum. Now I just work from home.”

Ben laughed, “So they just ship the Rosetta Stone to the door, and Lola carries it up here to you?”

“No, that would be impractical.” Callum completely missed the joke. “They mostly send photos of texts, and I study them. Decide when they were written and so on. But yes. Things like encrypted stones and whatnot. I expect one day you’ll be able to wave any object in front of a scanner and it’ll read aloud the translation in everything from Latin to Cockney-rhyming-slang to hieroglyphs. Until then, they’ll still need someone like me.” 

Ben nodded, to show interest. He wondered how many languages Callum could speak, and how fluently he could do so.

“So,” Callum said, bringing Ben back to the conversation. “You’ve moved all the way from London no? What are you going to do here?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“What did you do?”

“I’ve never done anything.” Bensaid, his confidence slipping. He couldn’t help but think back to his conversation with Lola, and the argument with Jay. “I used to get paid to fix up cars. But it wasn’t a job. People would just knock on my motel door and expect me to help.”

“Motel?”

“The apartment is my first home.”

“Ah.” A stagnant pause enveloped them, and Ben felt as though he were suffocating. “Well, you don’t have to have found your calling. Not everyone does.”

“Jay has,” Ben says, eyes on the criss-cross design of his saucer. “He’s wanted to be a suit since day one. He’s smarter than I can comprehend. One downside to adoptive brothers is you don’t share their genes.”

“What do you like doing?”

Ben paused a moment, it wasn’t often that someone steered the topic of conversation back to him, with an actual vested interest, and no ulterior motive. What did he like doing? “I like finding out about things.” He said finally.

“Then I’m sure you’ll find out about something interesting, and latch onto that.” Ben didn’t believe him but nodded anyway. “Tell me something interesting.”

“I’m nosey.”

“Well, I know that.” 

Ben imagined what it must have felt like to look up during an episode and see two complete strangers looming over you in your own house.

“I like going through things - things you’re not supposed to know about. Storage rooms, offices, desk drawers. I like knowing things about people that they don’t yet know themselves. Like, I know it’s inappropriate, but you just interest me. If you weren't here, I’d pull open all your boxes and find out what you keep in them - I want to know about the paper on the windows, and your obsession with cleaning and why you walk into every room with your left foot and knock on the doorframe as you do so, I want -” He looked up from his rant to see a rather stressed Callum sweating back at him. “-Sorry.” 

“Don’t apologise, it’s just...you’re new. It’s been just Lola for a long time and you’re…”

“Too much to handle? Rude? Abrasive?”

“I was going to say exciting. I just haven’t been excited over anything in a long while. I like to keep my heart-rate steady.” Callum poured out more tea. To Ben, the water felt chalky. Perhaps the water had been boiled multiple times.  _ It’s one of those counting things. _ His brain provided.

“Do you actually want to know all those things?” Asked Callum, eyebrows raised. “Because I’ll answer all your questions, though I may lose my air of mystery. You’d stop visiting.”

“I would still visit you.”  _ You are the single strangest person I have ever met. You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried. _

“Do you smoke?” Asked Callum

“Yes.” Bens face lit up, and they moved their chairs closer to the window, which Callum cracked open. He lit his cigarette and gave it to Ben. Ben watched as it moved between lips, but upon his first pull, he heaved himself into a coughing fit that made him feel like  _ maybe _ he might die. Callum fetched him a glass of water and frowned sympathetically. 

“Sorry, they’re Gauloises. Unfiltered. I wasn’t trying to kill you.”

“It’s fine.” Wheezed Ben, not wanting to lose his macho air. “I’ll just inhale your second-hand smoke.” And so he leaned back in his chair and hazily watched as the other man pulled deeply, and let the smoke trickle from his mouth, in no hurry. Ben thought that he’d never seem an expression of pure pleasure on anyone’s face until this moment. He wondered whether Callum was the sort to woo, because one look at a person like this, and they’d be on their knees. Literally and figuratively. Callum locked eyes with Ben.

“Curiosity killed the cat.” Rasped Callum, and it was almost a whisper, and Ben wondered whether Callum might’ve manufactured the whole situation just to make Ben feel the way he did in those few seconds.

“Don’t you know satisfaction brought it back?”

“Why yes. Of course, it’s common knowledge to forget the last point just to see if the recipient can prove you wrong.” Ben wondered if this was flirting. “You’d be a good scholar,” Callum said, after a moment.

“I don’t have the patience.”

“Then a journalist.”

“I’m not a good writer.”

“I could teach you.” Ben’s breath caught. “Phil had some interesting views on nature versus nurture.”   
“What did he say?” 

“Just that he always hated the fact that he raised you and your brother to go against everything your gut said. To avoid ‘nature’ altogether. He said the way he raised you, you were practically rewired.”

“That’s not true,” Ben said, his face hardened. “Phil didn’t raise us at all. I was the one who kept an eye out for Jay, and I was the one who raised myself. Phil’s alcoholism was the only thing he helped develop.” The words were harsh but not as harsh as he wished.  _ I don’t know how to elaborate. I don’t have the vocabulary to explain. _ Oh, the irony.

“Do you plan on living like this forever?” Ben asked, abrupt, rude.

“No, I’ll get to re-sorting the boxes. But everything has a place - it’s just a little unconventional at the moment.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Said Callum, stubbing out his cigarette, and standing up, “As a special treat, Mr Mitchell, I’ll let you open a box.”

Ben stared at the other man in amazement. “What, any box?” He asked, full of curiosity.

“Provided it’s somewhere near the top of the stack.” Said Callum, with a slight smile playing on his lips. “Don’t want to spend all day moving boxes back and forth.”

Ben stood up and began to wander around the room, a child in a candy store until his eyes locked on a small-ish box that sat atop the fridge. He wordlessly pointed at it, before getting it down. Callum handed him a Stanley knife, and Ben almost didn’t want to break the gaffa-tape spell that held the secrets in. But he did.

At first, there was a lot of plastic, and he thought perhaps all the box contained was wrapping until he realised that each ball of bubble wrap was in fact a minute taped up package. He held one to the light of the open window, and something inside it shone.

“Sometimes things just need to be wrapped up and put away. Isolated.” Callum rasped lowly.

“Do you want me to stop? I’m being too nosey-”

“No such thing. Curiosity is a gift. Go ahead.” With that Ben took to the knife again, slowly unwrapping the little ball of mystery, until a rusty-backed badge fell out. Under the plastic was a worn-out image of a pair of lips, and a dripping font reading  _ The Rocky Horror Picture Show _ . It wasn’t what Ben was expecting, but then again, he had no idea what to expect.

“Ah.” Said Callum mournfully. “That would be Stuart’s. He’ll want that back.” Ben wondered why Callum was letting him hurt him like this. Ben had caused the hurt in the poor man’s eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Callum nodded. “I’ll take that from you now.” He held out his hand, but as Ben leaned to give the badge over, Callum gesticulated for Ben to leave it in the packaging.  _ I suppose he doesn’t want to touch it. _ Why, Ben was still no closer to finding out.

They sat in silence until the silence got too loud. “I think I’ll be going now. Thank you for your time, Callum.”

“It’s been a pleasure.” Ben was the first to break eye contact, as he made to leave. 

“Ben.” Callum called after him, and Ben stopped to listen. “Do come back. I’ve very much enjoyed today.”

And Ben couldn’t help but speed up with leaving the apartment, because had he not he felt he may have said something stupid, or perhaps his chest might’ve just exploded.  _ Callum is something I don’t understand. And I want to understand more than anything. _ He walked down the carpeted stairs trying to visualize Callum, but all that came to him were those piercing eyes, and that vicious, smokey mouth.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: very slight mention of implied self-harm

Ben needed to get out of the house. It wasn't like before; there was now such an urgency that he could physically feel it; as though his heart was pounding against his ribs, like walls of a cell. He was trapped in this confused state, where even when he simply thought about Callum, he felt as though he were doing something wrong. _I don’t want to end up like him._ He felt awful as he tried to explain his reasoning to his own conscience; if he let the flat fester around him, swallow him whole like yellow wallpaper, he’d never be able to see Callum again. He’d fade into the footsteps on the ceiling. Ben needed to learn to love the building, and the world around it, so he had an understanding of Callum's world. He needed to know where that man had walked, had lived, had _worked_ , before he shut his door, and never turned back. It wasn’t that he was scared of becoming like Callum as if there was something infectious about him, it was simply that he was scared he’d run out of new memories, new stories and questions. Reasons to visit the man upstairs. He thought back to their conversation; _Exciting. Callum thinks I’m exciting._ Ben didn’t want to lose that. Ben needed to get out of the house. 

He dresses and leaves early. It appeared Jay had already left for the gym, though, what with it being a Sunday, Ben knew he had only a few hours to explore the shops and businesses of the town, so needed to move fast. The weather had let up a little but was still overcast, and Ben almost pulled out one of his father's jackets, before thinking better of it, and slipping into his large overcoat instead. Starting down the stairs, Ben made sure to slip through the foyer quickly, given his previous experience in the space always ended up with him engaged in a long conversation of sorts. It wasn’t that he was actively against this; Lola was the second most interesting thing about this place, but today he was on a mission, and his heart was pulling him closer and closer to the front door. He had to physically put his hand against the side table to stop himself moving when he saw a small piece of paper, folded sharply in half, in his and Jay’s otherwise empty mail basket. _Jay must have gotten rid of the junk mail this morning_ he thought, _so what’s this?_ He picked up the paper, and turned it over in his palm, to see his own name, in that unmistakable cursive, staring back at him. He was just about to open it up when he heard the lock on the Carter’s door begin to rattle. _Not today_ he thought, and pushed the note into the inside pocket of his coat, before slipping out the door.

Ben stands for the moment in the cold breeze that rattled around in the courtyard and looks towards the slope from which he and Jay entered for the first time less than a week before. He wonders whether, if he wants to explore the town properly, he should go that way. _The main entrance_. He looks at the wrought iron railing, and the ivy growing over the church wall, and how, even though he can’t see past it, he knows the little graveyard is just there. His foot jerks a little, as the toe of his shoe wets from a puddle, and steps back. Looking to the left, there are the large windows of the Carter’s dining room, which he hadn’t given a second thought to, the first time he’d seen them. Beside them is a slightly smaller window, which is cracked open. Sat in the darkness of the room is Whitney, with her back to Ben. He wondered whether she could feel his eyes on the back of her neck. He looked away, guilty. Above him is his own balcony, and above that, Callum's. There is some kind of board against his railing so Ben can't make out anything on it, but the gentle flow of smoke waterfalling over the edge tells Ben the man can see him, and the thought makes him a little uneasy. _Gauloises_. He thinks. _Exciting._ Ben decides to leave through the side gate; the one that leads directly to the pavement, like Lola mentioned. He turns the iron handle, and the bolt lifts up, opening the gate. Ben thinks about how, if he’d moved in way back when Phil had bought the place, he wouldn’t even need to think about which exit to use. This could have been his normal. _This will be normal._

It didn’t take him long to find his bearings, what with him driving out for food, though needless to say that felt like a lifetime ago now. Following old cast-iron signposts, Ben made his way to the town centre, and on the corner recognised a small office working as the town information centre. He thought back to his life moving from one town to the next and wondered whether he’d actually seen a building like this one open before. Certainly not in any of the cities he’d lived in, and it felt a little surreal, stepping into the carpet-tiled room; walls adorned with _local artwork_ and community posters. Ben wondered whether he’d stepped into some kind of alternate reality. He wondered how on earth Phil had survived, even for just the end of his life, in a place like this. At the desk, a cheery woman sat typing away at her computer, then grinning as she looked up and noticed him. He wondered whether it was too late to get away. Ben knew that he could simply look up a map of the town with a few taps on his phone, but he wondered whether snooping around, in all the little buildings, might cure his curiosity a little. Help him work out what he wanted to do. _Callum said I should write,_ he thought gently, _he said he could teach me._ But this moment, unlike most of recent, or so it seemed, was not about Callum. It was about Ben, and how he was going to learn who he was supposed to be. Who he could have been. He tried to shake the thought, but he couldn’t help but imagine Callum getting angry, trying to use the map on his phone. This was definitely becoming another _Callum_ moment.

“What can I do you for, today?” The woman asked, looking over her desk. She made no effort to stand. “And please don’t say you want a permit for a bouncy castle because I gave out the last form for that this morning and the printer’s packed up.” 

_Definitely an alternate reality_ Ben thought. He looked at the woman and noticed her hands were indeed covered in printer ink. “I wanted a town map.” He said simply, “But I can fix your printer if you want?”

The woman frowned at him slightly, “Really?” she asks, before standing up and signalling to the machine. It wasn’t anything special; and in fact if anything, Ben was surprised it had lasted as long as it had. He pushed aside the cover, which had already been unscrewed, and had a look. It was jammed. 

“Sure thing, boss.” Ben smiled. “Cars and printers are basically the same, right?”

The woman had come back after making two cups of tea in _I HEART HITCHIN_ mugs, to find Ben sat on the floor, print testing the machine. An ink cartridge had been pushed in wrong ages ago so it seemed, and the plastic casing had eroded away, causing the ink to spill out over the parts. Ben had worked some _common sense_ magic - though he didn’t need to tell the lady that, and as soon as the old cartridge had been replaced and the parts cleaned, it seemed to be printing fine again, if a little slow, but that came with age.

Ben took the tea graciously. “Are you visiting then? Or new around here? Can’t tell you the last time someone asked for a map, they’re practically obsolete.” The woman said, passing over a shiny pamphlet. 

“I’m new.” Ben said, “My brother and I have just moved into our dad’s old place.”

“Well that’s nice, isn’t it? Hitchin’s a lovely place to settle.” She says. “Are you looking to go anywhere in particular today?”

“Actually yes.” Ben says, “I’m looking for the museum.”

It turns out the museum is situated in a small park on the opposite side of the river. Ben walks steadily along the pavement, his collar turned up slightly to the wind until he makes it to the rusted gates. They were tall, at least twice his height, and painted an odd green, almost pastel, which Ben wasn’t afraid to turn his nose up at. It was odd, the whole town felt old; beams slicing across buildings and herringbone brick patterns. Moss creeping along the pavement and cracked slabs in the square, but it wasn’t until he saw the gates that he thought perhaps the town wasn’t just _old_ but dated too. He walks on, keeping to the right of the worn cycle path, and walks down an avenue of trees. He thinks, if it weren’t such a bleak day, the whole vista might have been quite pretty. He thinks they moved in at the wrong time, though with English weather, it was hard to tell what the right time would even be. He followed his feet a little further, noticing the odd dog walker or kids messing around with a ball, until the path took a slight bend, and then straight ahead of him, there it was. 

The museum sat on raised foundations in the middle of the park, clad in sand brick and a faded awning, with a rusted sculpture running the length of the front wall. It was three floors high, with thin, single-paned windows sat at jaunty angles to one another on the way up. At the top, there was a clocktower, with the numbers painted in a flaky navy. Most of the three was missing, and there was simply a gap between seven and nine. By the door, there was a lockable post board, and pinned in it was a sheet of paper with the open times printed in Garamond. 

_CLOSED ON SUNDAYS._

Not that Ben was going to go in, no, he just liked looking at it. The woman in the information office had told him it would be shut anyway, and gave him an odd look when he asked for directions nonetheless. It was precisely the sort of building where he could imagine Callum. Along the left side, there was a fenced-in physics garden, with a stone pestle and mortar sundial in the middle, and wooden benches with names engraved on either side. The herbs seemed to be unruly and fought each other for the small amount of space they had. Ben wondered whether there was a gardener. He made a mental note to ask Callum.

To the right, there was a European-syle gazebo selling newspapers and amenities and, upon further inspection, cigarettes. The man working the booth was chatting to a couple of women, so Ben turned around on the spot and looked back the way he had come. He could just imagine Callum walking up that path, the small stones cracking under his feet as the early morning light filtered through the silver birches and dappled his skin in the most glorious way. Ben imagined him, in his suit, with a backpack or briefcase, files meticulously ordered, walking up the front steps to the entrance of the museum. Or not. Maybe there was a back entrance for staff, and it meant he didn’t has to squeeze past the customers hanging around the gift shop, or worry about a last-minute change of staff at the front desk.

Ben’s hand subconsciously seemed to move to the inner pocket of his coat, and a smile turned the corners of his mouth up as he remembered Callum’s note, that had until this point gone unread. He unfolded it, and he didn’t know two words could make him feel such strong emotions. 

_Come back._

Everything hurt all the time, but those two words made it hurt a little less.

“Do you sell Gauloises?” Ben asked the man at the stand, after the women had left. 

The man frowned. “I did. They were discontinued a while back. No one around here was buying them anyway.” 

Ben tilted his head a little. “How long have you worked here? I was asking for a friend, see, he used to work here - or, still does really but -”

“Halfway?” The man asks, cutting in.

“Callum, yes.” Ben felt odd, referring to Callum as _Halfway_. He wasn’t in on the joke, so didn’t really have the right to join in.

“D’you have his packet?” Ben frowned. He didn’t really know the man was referring to. “Do you have his packet?” The man repeated.

“Er, no? Why?”

“Look, Lola - do you know Lola? She brings me his packet when he’s finished with it, and I fill it with Auld Kendall. It’s the closest thing to Gauloises there is now. Local stuff, great markup. Practically tastes like the real thing.”

“So you lie to him?”

“Look mate, it’s resourceful. Halfway’s been smoking it for so long he’d have said something if he’d noticed.”  
The concept as a whole really made Ben feel uneasy. “How long?”

“What?”

“How long has he been smoking this other stuff for?”

The man tilted his head in concentration, and Ben thought he was rather ugly. “Four years.” The man said.

Ben can’t stop thinking about it, all the way back to the square. Callum wasn’t a kid. Why the hell were they lying to him? What, one day he steps out of his flat and sees the world is completely different from how he left it? Surely assimilation was the only way forward? They couldn’t just leave him behind, in the past. Ben thought about all the boxes, filled with bubble wrapped memories. _Callum is living in the past as it is. He doesn’t need help there._

There were a lot more people in the centre of town, as Ben made his way back through, imagining. He saw the gym and the library; both redbrick, and imagined Jay in them, working, living. He thought it was odd, how Jay was just kind of getting on with life, uncomplaining. Ben’s chest hurt again when he thought about it. It was cruel, for ben to put so much of his anger on Jay when Jay had been dealt a hand so much harder than his. Sure, Jay didn’t have the whole runt-of-the-pack, homophobic-dad complex going on, but he never even got to know his real family, yet Ben was somehow angry he was intruding on his own? It made him sick, he needed to sort it out.

He decided to walk through the market to take his mind off of it, and was immediately hit by an explosion of activity; the music of a busker somewhere in the distance was filling the air, and all kinds of things were being flogged; veg, cheeses, fresh bread - he’d only seen these kinds of markets on television and in films, his real experience being with Eastend knockoffs and tacky second-hand items that seemed too beat up for even charity shops to want. This was nice, though, he felt like a proper grown-up browsing the stalls, wondering whether he could maybe buy something to make the flat a little bit nicer. 

For a moment Ben thinks he sees someone he recognises, and the breath is knocked from his lungs, but it’s just the way the light is reflecting. He looked at the woman, and perhaps it was the way she smiled or crinkled her eyes as she wrapped the bouquet of posies and handed it gently to the customer but he couldn't help but think of - _no._ Ben tears his stare away. _There's no need to start thinking like that. It won’t do anyone any good, not anymore._ Still, his mind wanders. He thinks about the town and the parks and the little courtyard. Once upon a time, this was exactly what he needed. What he wanted. He could have had a family here, and never known what it was to feel broken as he had, to have to mourn - _no._ He thought again, more firmly this time. He pushed that thought somewhere way to the back of his head, the part that he only sorted through when he was drunk and alone with the pocketknife Phil had given him for his tenth birthday. _Don’t be weak_ . He thought. He closed his eyes tight for a moment, and then opened them again, and noticed Jay stepping out of a shop across the way, doing his coat up. _Perfect timing_. Ben thought.

They found a small out-of-the-way coffee shop and sat down in the window. Jay ordered a skinny iced latte, and Ben laughed at him for it. Ben ordered a cup of tea, and scratched at the back of his hand, knowing he’d gone too long without a smoke. Jay pulled out a paper bag, explaining he’d found a traditional sweet shop that morning on his run, and had gone back when they opened. He offered the bag to Ben, who put his hand in, and pulled out a chocolate lime.

“Nice.” He said quietly, popping it in his mouth.

“I think we need to have an argument,” Jay said. “I’m angry at you, and you’re angry at me, and we need to talk about it. I shouldn’t have shut you up the other night. I’m not angry at you as a person, it's just rough.”

“I get it. I’m angry you didn’t care about the breakfast I made on our first day.”

“I’m angry you don’t want me to take classes here.”

“I’m angry that you just fit in, wherever you go, you know how to adapt.”

“I’m angry that you’re wasting your potential. It’s like you’re not even trying.”

“I’m angry that you don’t like me talking to the neighbours. I’m angry that you can’t see that I’m not wasting my potential, I am trying, there's just not a lot of potential there.”

Jay shook his head, “What’s the actual issue?”

“I think my issue is that, and I know it’s stupid, but dad loved you more than he loved me, and that’s not fair because I’m his own flesh and blood. I love you to death, you’re my brother and nothing can change that, but sometimes I feel like he looked at me, the kid who liked dance and baking and musical songs, and he thought he’d screwed up somehow. He knew I was gay and he didn’t like it, so he adopted you to try again. And it worked. You were into sports and you just had this banter with him that I could never have. There’s a bit of my brain that resents you for that, and I’m sorry for it.”

Jay nodded, “Okay.” He said, looking into his coffee. “I’m angry at you because you always got to be a Mitchell. I know I could have changed my name, but it’s the blood that counts. Even when I was introduced to Phil’s friends, I was his ‘adoptive’ son, and I know it shouldn’t matter, but it felt like there was this huge gap between us. I felt guilty when I didn’t want to hang around you at school because I felt like I owed you something, I always have, and to use your words, I resent you for it. I’m fine, living here for a year or whatever, but I need to get away. I can’t be a Brown, and I can’t be a Mitchell, but we get that letter and I know straight away, that this is what you need -”

“I don’t need this. I don’t have to be here,” Ben starts, “I’m not-”

“You need the car, Ben. And that’s okay, I can do this for you, but the longer we’re tethered together, the harder it is to learn how to live apart. We aren’t kids.”

Ben nodded, he knew Jay was right. The words he said hadn’t hurt him, just like he knew his own words hadn’t hurt Jay. But it needed to be said, and a weight was lifted since they’d aired their laundry.

“Anything else?” Jay asks.

“I like Callum.”

“Like, _like-like_?” Jay raises his brow. “Mate, it’s been a week.”

“No,” Ben shook his head firmly. “Not like that, I just...it’s hard to explain, it’s like I’ve just got this _curiosity_? I don’t know if that’s the right word. But I want to be his friend. Lola’s too. I like them. I like it here.”

“That’s okay,” Jay says. “You’re allowed to be happy.” 

Ben wonders if he should tell Jay just how unhappy he is. _Don’t be weak._ He decided better of it.

“I have an idea.”

The graveyard was small, and the headstone was dappled in light glimmering through the old tree above. Ben wondered whether there were rules about how close people could be to trees, but he supposed if it was just their ashes, it didn’t really matter. The word _loving_ caught Ben’s attention first, and he wondered who it was that had chosen the headstone, and who had attended the funeral. He thought about that picture of Mick and Linda and wondered if he ever really knew his dad. Not that kids ever know their parents, but this was different, this was like Phil had a caring side all along, and yet he’d made the decision not to show it to his own son. He wondered whether Louise had made it to the funeral. He wondered if Louise even knew Phil was dead if she’d been left some cypher of a note and the keys to a flat. Probably not. The rest of her family were still alive anyway. Looking at the grave was the first time Ben realised he was an orphan.

“There he is.” Jay says, staring down at the stone.

“Yeah.” Ben agrees. “There he is. At least he’s finally settled somewhere. Not that I ever knew that was what he wanted.”  
Jay turned his head to face Ben, only slightly. “Do you think he would have been a better dad? If we moved into the flat when we were kids?”

Ben sighed, “I don’t think so. I think circumstances are made by a person. Not vice versa. Plus that kids room is a nightmare. Not only did he know I liked musicals, but the sports wallpaper he chose was baseball? We don’t even play baseball here. Yeah, maybe he made an effort. But it was a show he was putting on. The person he was pretending to be. The person he was was completely different, and I have the scars to prove it.”

“Ben,” Said Jay quietly. Ben hadn’t noticed he was crying.

“Why do they all keep saying he was a good guy, Jay? Why do they keep saying that?”

“I don’t know.” Jay pulled Ben into a hug, Ben clawing at his brother's jacket as he let out a heavy sob. “But we’re here now, and we can find out, can’t we? This one last self-absorbed mission the man lays out for us. We can sort this mess out.”

Ben nodded, his hair brushing against Jay's neck.


	8. Chapter 8

It had been two days since Ben had gone exploring for the first time, two days since he’d made up with Jay in their own odd way, and two days since he’d received the little folded note from Callum. They’d arranged for Ben to visit again, and he’d been counting down the minutes. This time it was nothing formal, but Ben had made a bit more of an effort with his appearance, making sure to style his hair and iron his shirt, which earned a raided brow from Jay, but he didn’t say anything as he went back to flicking channels on the tele.

Ben sat down in the free armchair as he pulled on his socks. He’d made sure they were matching and clean, with no holes, now he knew they’d be seeing the light of day after entering Callum’s flat. 

“There’s a pack of biscuits on the side,” Jay said, without turning to face Ben.

“What?”

“I picked up a pack of biscuits - you know, those nice chunky ones? I thought you could take them over to Callum’s when you go.”

Ben smiled. “Yeah, thanks.” Things were going well. The boys didn’t need drunk shouting matches and fistfights. They just needed to know what was on the other's mind every once in a while.

“Say, are you going to be moping around in here all day?” Ben joked, mimicking Jay’s previous behaviour, “I really do think you should go explore the outside world.”

“Oh, shut up mate,” Jay laughed, chucking a cushion in Ben’s general direction, and failing miserably. “I’ll have you know my bed is arriving today, I need to stay in.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. That Mick bloke said he’d come to give me a hand an’ all. Maybe go for a pint after, if you wanna join?”

“Thanks, but I’m good,” Ben says, lacing his shoes and picking up the biscuits. “But have a good time, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The biscuits had gone down a storm; they were the kind with physical chunks of chocolate in, and Callum had been very impressed. He’d thanked Ben, and Ben had said something along the lines of _‘I baked them this morning.’_ which received a laugh, and the way Callum’s eyes glinted made a warmth rise inside of Callum. He still found it so odd how he could be physically drawn to a man he knew little to nothing about. And it was like he had said to Jay; it wasn’t a romantic interest _though Callum’s good looks did help_ , it was more of a longing; something in Ben’s mind and chest told him he wanted Callum in his life, no matter the circumstances. If anything, a platonic relationship - which was all he could ask for - seemed like a much healthier bet to Ben, who seemed to grin at Callum every time they caught eyes; like he couldn’t quite believe they’d had the fortune of meeting, and continuing to get to know each other. The weather was calm, and so they opened the french doors to the balcony, and let the breeze flow in, as Callum boiled the kettle.

“I went for a walk around town, the day after I saw you last,” Ben said.

“Oh yes? I saw you leave, from the balcony.” Something shifted in Ben, he quite liked being seen.

“Yes. I walked all around the market. And helped a woman with her printer.”

“You did what?” Callum laughed, bringing the tea over. 

“I’d gone into the information office, and their printer was broken, so I fixed it.”

“Oh,” chuckled Callum, “I thought it was some kind of euphemism.”

Ben grinned. “I don’t think I’d be helping a woman with anything, in that regard.”

Callum sipped his tea without saying anything.

“I made friends with Jay, too.”

“I didn’t know you weren't friends?”

“Yeah, well, it gets bad. But it’s better now. I love him really.”

“That’s good to know,” Callum says wistfully, “You shouldn’t fight with your brother, or one day you’ll turn around and he’ll have packed up his things and left. And where will that leave you?”

Ben nodded.

“I went to your museum, too.” Ben said, looking for praise, almost as though he were some kind of puppy. “It was closed, but I’ll go back when it’s open. I want to see where you work. Do you have an office in some backroom?”  
“I did.” Callum said, raising an eyebrow. “Though I expect they will have given it to someone else now. I don’t think it’s fair for them to just keep a room empty on the off chance I return.”  
“But will you?”  
“I’d like to,” Callum says, wistfully. “I’m lucky, from my balcony I can see quite a lot. But I miss the world sometimes. I find it hard, because some people tell me I should embrace this, this _eccentric-ness_ as being part of who I am, but others say it’s holding me back, you know? I’m not too sure what is me and what isn’t anymore. I’d like to be able to go and walk under the silver birches - and there’s a gorgeous magnolia around the back, though that won't be in bloom yet - I don’t think that’s a plausible thing to happen. Anyway, I’m used to living like this, I don’t feel...imprisoned.”

“Lola says that there are ways of...treating OCD?” Ben frowns, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to say the wrong thing. I don’t want to offend you but I’m…”

“- Curious?” Chuckles Callum, “That’s okay. I know you mean well, you won’t offend me, or if you do, I can explain why. What you’re talking about is medicine, right?” 

“Yes.”

“Well, yes. There is medication, but the way my brain sees it, it’s confusing. I’m a logical person, I like things to be a certain way. I have these thoughts that make me need to do them. I’m aware how they sound when I say them out loud - I’m aware that they’re completely unrelated to the outcome of a situation, but at the same time, they’re real to me. I don’t know how to explain it well, people don’t usually listen for this long.”

“I’m listening.”

“The stuff I’d need to be taking are called SSRIs, they sort stuff in your synapses, kind of boost your serotonin - which is why they’re also used for treating depression.” He says. “In my head, Prozac is an antidepressant, so I ask myself, why am I taking an antidepressant if I’m not depressed? Plus, the drugs take months to work, and so then I’m taking this medication which _isn’t for my stuff_ , and I’m not seeing any changes, which to me means it’s not doing anything, so I stop taking them, and then the cycle continues.” Ben looks at Callum, who is frowning. “Other people are worse off than me. I don’t want to be taking resources away from people that need them, just because I have some quirks.”  
“But it’s okay if you need them too.” Ben says quietly. “If I broke my leg, you’d call me an ambulance. You wouldn’t say it’s just a quirk.”

“I’m not in pain,” Callum says firmly, and Ben thinks he should leave it at that.

They sit in silence, which grows more comfortable by the minute. Something about Callum’s presence was so oddly calming, that Ben felt as though everything pent up just drifted away when they were sat together. Callum took another sip of his tea.

“Can I open another box? Ben asks suddenly, as though the words just fell from his mouth, unable to be tamed. 

Callum looked surprised. He receded a little, before smiling small. “Yes, if you want.” He said, “Though the same rules as last time. Make sure it’s near the top somewhere.”

Ben chuckled a little, “Yes, okay.”

His feet took him out through the hallway this time, eyeing up the mountains of cardboard, wondering which would house this missing piece of the jigsaw - though Callum seemed to have so many parts of himself hidden away, Ben was sure he wouldn’t know where to look first. He stopped for a moment, as he found a box, a little way down the stack, that wasn’t taped shut like the rest. In fact, it looks as though it had simply been shoved into the stack, the way it was angled. It couldn’t have been Callum that had done that surely when he took so much time making sure everything else was so methodical. Ben pulled the box out.

Instead of the bubble-wrapped items of the first box he’d opened, this one was full of packing chips, and it was complete with the house address written across the top. _It’s not a_ _Callum box_ Ben thought, _It’s a box sent to Callum._ He wondered whether it would be invading Callum’s privacy to open it, but he was already being overtly invasive, so a peek couldn’t hurt. The box was heavy, containing books. Classic titles; _To Kill a Mockingbird, Catch-22, Northanger Abbey,_ and then - 

“What did you find?” Callum asks from the other room. Ben looked down at the book in his hands and wondered whether he should answer. Some guilty, evil part of him wanted to slip it under his jacket, pull out something else to show Callum, then pour over the book later, without prying eyes. He already knew it would be a bad thing for Callum to see, given the general pattern of his shiftiness, but Ben knew he had to do the right thing. If he wanted to gain Callum’s trust, _and he wanted to gain Callum’s trust_ , he had to be wholly honest.

“It’s a photo album.” He calls back, his fingers still absentmindedly tracing the letters stamped into the leather cover. “Do you want me to put it back?” He asked.

Callum had stepped into the doorway, but not entered the room, as Ben noticed. “No,” He said, smiling a little. “What harm can it do, eh?”

Ben followed Callum back to the table, and shuffled his chair around so he sat beside him, and didn’t have to crane his neck to see the pictures. It didn’t go unnoticed that Callum flinched a little as he sat, and began drumming his fingers lightly against his thigh. The book sat open on the table, on the first page, with a single photo in the centre. 

_A bald man leant against a brick wall that separated the promenade from the beach, he was short and stubby, but grinning as his arm fed its way around the back of a tall, slim brunette. She had huge black sunglasses hiding her face, two melting ninety-nines balanced in one hand, and the other steadying a pram where a toothy toddler sat holding his feet. On the other side of the man was a boy holding a football, wrinkling his nose up. He seemed somehow separate from the rest of them, almost an afterthought._

“Is this your family?” Ben asked, because he wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Yes,” Said Callum sadly, “It was.”

“And that’s your brother?” Ben asked again.

“Stuart, yeah. Half brother really, that’s my mum, not his.” He said, pointing to the woman. “The Highways have a habit of scaring away mothers.”  
“How so?”

“He - Jonno, my dad - he wasn’t a good bloke. Stuart started showing signs he’d inherited the crazy, and Jonno reckoned I was going to end up like that too. That’s what he told my mum anyway, that I’d end up just as bad as them. When Stuart got out, he got better. Toxic environment, you know? But I guess my mum didn’t want to risk it.” He pointed to the date scrawled beneath the photo. “Ninety-four. I would have been three. She left before my sixth birthday.” 

Ben didn’t know what to say. He had always thought his mum dying was the worst fate, the worst way he could have been left to deal with Phil and his abuse, but for Callum to know his mother was alive, but to simply _not believe he was worth it_. Ben almost asked if Callum had developed a complex, but shut his mouth again when he quickly realised the implications of what he wanted to ask. Callum was staring at the photo deeply, his fingers running across the photo paper, wiping away a soft layer of dust. Ben wondered when the last time Callum had even seen a photo of her was. At that moment, whilst Callum was deep in thought, Ben looked at him. Really looked at him. He didn’t know how to think it, without sounding ridiculous insensitive even to just his conscience, but just then, as Callums eyes glazed over, Ben saw how very human he was. In all the conversations and thoughts he’d had before that moment, Callum had been an enigma or something to discover, but right then Ben saw all of that fall away, and sat beside him was just an incredibly broken man, his battle wounds reopened and weeping.

He reached out, to still Callum’s tapping fingers. He didn’t know what he was trying to achieve; to stroke his hand maybe, or hold it, but just that touch of skin broke the spell. Callum jerked himself away from Ben, physically turning his body in the opposite direction, one large hand reaching up and wiping his eyes. He cleared his throat loudly, before snapping the album shut.

“I was wrong,” Callum stated, turning back to look at Ben, who had at this point moved his chair back around the table, giving him space. “It can do an awful lot of harm.” He didn’t touch the book again. “Will you put it by the door? I’ll ask Lola to take it tomorrow.”  
“Callum, you can’t just throw it away?” Ben said, the intonation of his breath masking his words as a question, almost. “Do you not want to keep it?”  
“Not here.” Callum says. “Lola has a box of things, she’s going to give them back to me when I’m feeling better. When I can handle it. I can’t handle it now though, I’m sensible. I know my limits.”

Ben nods and takes the book away. He wonders what could possibly be on the other countless pages, but it’s not his place to ask. Hurting Callum was the last thing he wanted. 

He sits back down at the table and sees Callum rolling a cigarette. _Poor man_. Ben felt guilty; he knew enough about Callum to know that sympathy would be the last thing he needed, nor wanted. 

“I never had any pictures of my family.” He says after some time, his voice cutting through the tense silence. “But there’s one up, in the flat. I remember it being taken.”

“Sat on the hood of a car?” Callum asks, making eye contact.

Ben looks up at that, “Yeah. How did you know?” 

“I remember seeing it,” Callum says. He lights his cigarette, though remains sat where he is. Ben wonders how old the building must be, that the smoke alarms don’t constantly go off. “I thought you were dead.” 

“What?” Ben asks, frowning.

“I thought you were dead. Phil talked about these two sons he had, but you were never around. I thought maybe there had been some accident and he’d never got over it. Phil’s two ghost sons, Mick had said to me. I spoke to Stuart, the day you arrived, he said he thought you were made up. Phil never seemed like the father type. More of an uncle that slipped you sweet money under the table and told you rude jokes.”

Ben shook his head. “I think we knew different men.” He says firmly. “We went to his grave too. I felt awful for not attending the funeral. But we didn’t even know he had died.”

“I didn’t go, either. I said to him I would try, but I just couldn’t. It was one of the worst weeks I’d had here. I think sometimes people talk about others and say ‘ _they’re a good person who did bad things’_ or _‘they’re a bad person who did good things’_. I don’t know how bad a person he was to you, nor should you feel the need to tell me, and no good he did will ever white-out the bad, especially if it involved different people, but Phil was a good man to me. Phil was kind and I know, _I know_ people can act one way to one person, then completely flip the switch with another, but he saved me from myself, and I have to be thankful of that.”

“Of course,” Ben said, understanding, and he truly did. “I have to be thankful for him too, I think.”

“You don’t have to be anything you don’t want. Phil is dead, you don’t need a requiem.”

“I know, but he’s my dad. It’s a problem I have.” Ben looks down at his tea, and he realises it’s gone cold before he could take a sip. “If it’s not too much, do you think you could tell me about him? They Phil you knew? Everyone seems so shifty about it all.”

Callum breathed deeply. “Yes, okay. Phil...talked quite a lot about righting wrongs. He gave the Carter’s their flat because he thought Linda’s problems were his fault; for selling them the pub in the first place. He saw Lo as being a down-on-her-luck kid who was kicked out the group home as soon as she turned eighteen - before she even left school, and Stuart and I…” Callum trailed off.

“He was getting you out of an abusive home.” Ben finished for him.

“He said we were better off without an alcoholic for a father.”

“Figures.”

“Phil helped me a lot, when I first moved in, stupid things, you know? Helped me write my CV, and call the doctors and that. When things got bad, he’d pick up medication and make sure I had food in. Things are easier now, you just click a few buttons and you can get anything delivered to your door, but he was a help, you know.”

Ben nodded in response and wondered what having a guardian like _Phil_ would have been like. 

“And I came out to him,” Callum said, his voice small. Ben felt as though someone had crumpled his heart like paper. “I thought it was the end of the world. Even Stuart took it badly, at first. Phil knocked some sense into him though. Not physically, but, he sat us all down and just...talked. He, um, he saved my life. I think.” Callum was avoiding Ben’s impertinent eye contact, boring holes into the side of his head.

 _Dad could save this nobody, but he couldn’t save you._ Ben felt cruel even thinking it, but it rang true. _If he was capable of being a good dad, then the only problem was you. You weren’t a good enough son. Too weak. No wonder he needed to Beat the Mitchell out of you. You never belonged. Jay was a better Mitchell than you. Callum was a better Mitchell than you -_

“Ben?” Callum asked, concern written across his face.

“What, sorry?” Ben said, looking back up.

“I said, are you okay? You went somewhere then, disappeared a little?” The fist that had been squeezing every last drop of life from Ben’s heart loosened its grip, just a little. He ached all over.

“I’m fine.” He said. “Just thinking.” He said.

Callum frowned.

“Look, Callum, it’s getting late. I think I should be heading-”

“Oh, no -” Callum began, getting flustered. “You’re more than welcome to stay, we don't have to talk about that stuff, or we could order some food or -”

“No, Callum. I think I need to go.” Ben said firmly. He could tell he was backing into his shell, but he needed it. He didn’t want to hear about the father of the year, what he needed was a drink. 

He walked quickly through the flat, picking up his shoes and not even bothering to put them on before he left. As an afterthought, he snatched up the photo album. He felt awful. He felt sick, and he tried not to feel anything as he heard Callum continue to call to him as he disappeared down the stairs.


	9. Chapter 9

Time was passing in a haze. Before Ben could take a second to breathe, he was sat in the corner booth of a pub called  _ The George _ and nursing a Tribute, trying not to think about his dad. Unfortunately, that was all he could think of - Ben just couldn’t understand why Phil could seemingly be the perfect parental figure and helping hand for all these people, but not him. Why, if he wanted to  _ right wrongs, _ as Callum had put it, did he not start on his own doorstep. Why did he reward so many others, when Ben was left out in the cold? And why, of all things, did he have to torture his son with the resemblance of a perfect life, a flat, a  _ community _ after he was gone, and Ben couldn’t argue against it? He needed a refill.

He thought about Jay suggesting drinks, and how he should be out with his brother and Mick, but drinking alone just sounded so much more appealing. He swapped out the ale for something harder, and this time he stayed sat at the bar, instead of retreating back to his seat. The stool was uncomfortable, but Ben felt like he deserved it. He clocked a bloke with a neat beard and clear aviators staring at him from across the way; he’s sat a little apart from his friends, all wearing cardigans and beanies.  _ Great _ . Ben thinks  _ I wanted to find a boozer, and instead, I’m in Hipster central. _ He thought about leaving, but a clean glass of whiskey was set in front of him by the barman; an older guy with little to no hair and a closed-mouth smile that suggested a severe lack of teeth. 

“It’s paid for.” The man mumbled, nodding his head in the direction of the Hipster.

Ben glanced back over. The man was smiling now. Ben supposed he was classically handsome, if on the shorter side. Not that Ben had anything against short people normally - it was just something that had seemingly become less interesting to him of late.

The man got up and moved towards where Ben was sitting. “I’ve got it right, right?” He says, and Ben frowns.

“What?”

“I mean,  _ I’m in with a chance. _ You’re not going to tell me you’re flattered, but your missus is on the way?”

“Oh,” says Ben, instantly changing his demeanour. He’s not particularly interested, but it’s second nature to him. “No, you’re definitely in with a chance. But I think you might have to work a little harder than a free drink and bedroom eyes from across the bar. Mate.”   
“It’s Duncan.” The man says, smirking, and it pisses Ben off a little. Normally, arrogance is a huge turn on. Ben likes to take people down a peg or two, and he does it well. But this man just makes him feel tired. The drink is getting to his head, and when he glances to the window and notices how dark it’s gotten, he feels stupid.  _ Too old for this _ . He thinks, even though it shouldn’t be true in the slightest.

“I’ll tell you what,  _ Duncan, _ ” He draws in his usual tone, “I’ve got somewhere to be, but give me your number, and I might throw you a bone.”

Duncan smirks, “That’s what I like to hear.” He says, adding his number into Ben’s contacts. “Don’t take too long though, I lose interest quickly.” He then adds, “And who is it I should be expecting a text from?”

“Ben.” Ben says, getting up from his stool, and grabbing his coat.

“I’ll see you around then,  _ Ben, _ ” The man says, staying sat where he was, “Oh, and, don’t forget your little picture book.” He points to the photo album, which Ben had propped up on the floor, to avoid having to stare at his misdeed. He picked it up quickly. 

“Thanks.” He says, before leaving into the evening air. 

All evening, he’d avoided looking through the album, yet now, as he walked, his fingers were itching to turn the page. He knew how very wrong it was, it would be stupid to even look at that first one again; a total breach of privacy. If he were a better person, Ben wouldn’t have even taken it in the first place. _But you’re not a better person_ , he thinks, and he screws up his nose in the process. _You’re not even a good person._

Ben opens the book. Ben opens the book to the  _ last page _ . It’s a photo of Callum; he looks younger, but mostly the same. His hair is awful. He’s smiling. He’s stood, next to a tall man with a greying beard, and they are holding a certificate and shaking hands for the photo. Ben can’t stop staring. Five years ago, Callum received an award in an airy hall where the light shone in and lit up his complexion, and he was happy about it.  _ What happened to him? _ Ben wondered.  _ When did he lose that smile? _

“What’s that?” Ben looks up to find that he’s already in the courtyard, and Whitney is sitting on her window ledge, bare feet hanging out and grazing on the cobbles below. She was smoking and staring at Ben intently.

“Nothing,” Ben said, shrugging. “You smoke out here a lot?”

“It’s easy too.” She says, “It’s cool out around this time of night so it’s nice. Nice to be alone.”

“Yeah,” Ben says, scuffing his shoe a little against the ground. “Sorry about that.”

“No worries. You’re just passing through.”

“I guess.”

“It’s getting worse though,” Whitney says, nodding towards the sky. It’s peeking through the trees behind the steeple. Straight above the courtyard was too fogged over with clouds. “The weather.”

“It seems to be doing that a lot recently.” Ben says, “Ever since I got here. Showers, wind. It’s been miserable.”

“It does that when a storm is coming,” Whitney says, matter of fact. “Have you never seen a storm before?”

“Of course I have.” Ben scoffs, indignant.

“Well they’re bad here - what with all the single glazing. The power goes too. Remember to lock your windows at night, or you’ll wake up and they’ll have been smashed all over the place.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m trying to be nice. Do you have a problem with me?” Whitney asks, holding out her tabs to him. He opens the packet and takes one graciously. 

“No.” He says. “I don’t think so. Should I?”

“No.” She says. “I’m friends with Callum. You know?” She says. 

Ben didn’t understand what she was getting at.

“I mean, sometimes things work differently with him. And if you don’t get that it’s weird and sometimes people don’t have the vocabulary so they say things like ‘mad’. And when they do I laugh because it’s a reflex. But I’m friends with him. I don’t want to see someone take advantage of him because he’s ‘new’ or ‘interesting’. Get it?”

Ben was a little scared of her, and only in that moment did he realise he hadn’t got his lighter out, and the cigarette was hanging loose in his mouth. “I get it.” He mumbled, lighting up. “Did you know my dad?” Ben asked.

“A bit.” She replied. Her gaze was still icy, but Ben could tell she was beginning to warm up to him. “I always tended to stay away from him.”

“Why?”

“He made me uneasy.”

“Why?” 

“I don’t know.” She said, stubbing out the butt of her cigarette on the stone of the sill. “It always felt like he was hiding something. Like, Sometimes, near the end, he’d walk in late - as you have now - and I’d try to talk to him. He’d always brush me off. I could never tell whose side he was on.”

“Side?” Ben asks, confused.

“Was he a good guy, or a bad one? That’s how he held himself. Either he was a criminal or the filth. I thought for a while he was an informant. No idea though. He just had a lot of money. The kind of money I can’t dream of seeing.”

“So where did it go?”

“Where did what go?”

“The money?”

Whitney narrowed her eyes at Ben, frowning. “Why would I know. Daddy didn’t leave you a little treasure hunt?”

Ben sighed out a breath of frustration. “It’s starting to feel like it.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Whitney said, swinging her legs back into her room, “When you do find it, buy yourself a new car. Yours is ancient.”

“Yeah.” Says Ben, but Whitney is already shutting her window. “I know.”

He’d barely gone into the office since they moved in. It made him feel a little queasy, it smelt like Phil. Ben looked at the business card again.  _ HJS _ . With the warmth of alcohol running through him, he turned on the computer. The screen flashed slightly, before whirring to life. It was old, and the fan made far too much noise, piercing the silence of the flat. A yellow streetlamp shone in through the curtains behind him, and Ben realised he hadn’t turned the lights on when he entered the room, instead leaving it to be illuminated by streaks of the outside world. He sat down on the office chair and lost his balance only slightly as the wheel rucked the faded green rug, just a little. The computer was, of course, password protected. Not much use to Ben. 

He looked down at the desk drawers, and the ornate carvings along them and their brass handles, wondering where Phil would have found such a desk, and what persuaded him to buy it. The two drawers at the top were locked, and the larger one at the bottom contained a dusty bottle of jack.  _ There’s a lot of alcohol in this flat _ , Ben thinks, and imagines what it would be like had he grown up there; with everyone loving t-total Phil who got drunk and punched his son behind closed doors. He wondered whether the Carters or the quiet boy and his brother upstairs would notice. Ben pulled the bottle out. It was sealed, but he soon changed that with a  _ crack _ of the metal, and took a swig, oscillating in his chair a little.  _ Pretending to be dad _ . He removed that thought from his mind as quickly as it entered. 

_ But where would I hide things? _ He thought. Whitney was right when she said she thought Phil might have been on the wrong side of the law. Phil was not a good man, and dodgy deals and whispers in cars were his forte - not that he ever let Ben in on much. Ben wondered whether, had he been given the chance, he would have stepped up to help, or whether his morals would have gotten the better of him.  _ Of course not. _ His brain supplied.  _ You would have done anything to please him, and it’s not like you had any morals, to begin with. _

He pulled the bottom drawer out farther and found the catch that lifted the false bottom.  _ There we go. _ He thought, ever so slightly smug as he pulled out the files containing -

_ \- photos _ . Family photos. Some of him and Jay, Photos from when they were travelling around, disposable camera photos Ben didn’t realise even existed, making them look  _ normal _ and  _ loved _ . And there were others too - similar to the ones Linda showed, with Phil in the pub, a Christmas dinner with the neighbours, and then there was another. 

_ Phil stood beside a swing set, hands in pockets, grinning at the camera. It was the kind of swing made for infants, and there Ben was, in the seat mid-air, being pushed by his mum. She was laughing, her face mostly obscured my hair thanks to the wind, but no doubt it was her, with a ring on her finger and a blush on her cheeks. _

Ben hadn’t known the photo had existed. He had no memory of the day. Of this happy family. He pushed away the tears roughly, and shoved all the photos - but that one - back into the draw, closed the lid and shut it tight. He suddenly wished they were incriminating files, or hit lists or  _ anything _ but happy memories because it was just something Ben couldn’t handle. He looked at where he’d left Callum’s album, open on the first page and the family that stared back at him. Taking a breath, he placed the photo of his own mother on top, before closing the book and getting up, slotting it into a space on the bookshelves where, almost immediately, it blended in with all the others. Ben knew he wouldn’t have a hard time finding it nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh idk it's a lot shorter than usual but ben obviously needs to go and visit Callum again and that didn't make sense to put into this chapter and I know it's a filler which is why it was so hard to write but I promise more is coming soon. On the other hand, there has obviously been a few things used as foreshadowing, but I'm quite pleased with a few more subtle hints dropped - any idea where you think this is going?


	10. Chapter 10

It was late. Ben was knocking on Callum’s door, despite it being open.

“It’s open,” Callum called, from somewhere inside the flat. Ben swallowed the lump in his throat and walked in. Callum was sat at the table, frowning towards Ben. “Hello.” He said, “It’s quite late, you know?”

“You’re the one who welcomed me an’ Jay at the witching hour.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“You don’t need to keep apologising.”

Callum nodded. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you like a smoke?”

“Are they goloshes?”

“ _ Gauloises.”  _ Callum smiled, just at the corners of his mouth.

Ben frowned, “That’s what I said.” and then, “I’ll just inhale your smoke again.”

Callum nodded, before leaning his head to look out a small patch of uncovered window. “The weather is really picking up.” He said, clicking his lighter once, twice, three times before it sparked, and he held it to the straight.

“Whitney said that.”

“Whit did?”

“Yes. She says storms get really bad around here.”

Callum hummed; “It’s because of all the single glazing. It’s not made for it. Problem with these high walls in the courtyard is that the wind can whip around there much faster than it does in the open.”

“You guys make it sound awful.” Ben laughed, “Maybe I should lock myself indoors forever.” He flinched realising what he said.

Callum laughed. “I don’t need any more convincing, thank you very much.”

“Sorry.” Ben breathed deep, letting the smoke dance around in his lungs. “Sorry about earlier too. I was a prick for running off.”

“I tend to have that effect on people.” Callum said earnestly.

Ben shrugged, “To be honest, I feel the complete opposite. I’m drawn in.”

“By my madness?”

“By your personality.”

They sit quietly for a while, and Ben tries not to stare.

“Can I say some stupid things? About my dad?” Ben asked, “Will you judge me?”

“What right do I have to judge anyone?” Callum retorted.

“I don’t know,” Ben mumbled. “You’re the smartest person I know.”

“That’s stupid. I’m not smart. Everyone calls me Halfway, for God’s sake.”

“So?”

“So, if I’m the smartest person you know, then you must have a small group of acquaintances.”

“You only think of me as an acquaintance?” Ben asks.

“We’ve known each other for a week.”

Ben nods slowly. When Callum put it like that, it made sense. Of course, to Callum, a working man with all his own issues, Ben was just a new neighbour, but that didn’t stop Ben from feeling slightly shortchanged. Callum - _in whatever way it could be deemed normal_ \- was taking up most of Ben’s time. He was infatuated with interest. “I think you can say we are friends.” He settled, and then; “I’d like you to think we’re friends.”

“Okay,” Callum said, with a half-smile. “I think I’d like that too. I don’t have many friends. Sorry - that’s a sad thing for a grown man to say; it’s not like I should need friends but -” he cleared his throat, “Your dad...you wanted to talk about your dad? I cut you off.”

“Yeah.” Ben said, “I mean, no - you didn’t cut me off - it’s a conversation; you’re allowed to talk.”

“Okay.”

“I think he’s selfish. To have given us all this after he died. I don’t think it was the right thing to do. Because, either he was a horrible man to me, and then had the decency to change, but never apologised whilst alive - or, if what you say is true - he was a good guy all along. I hate that he was so nice to you. And Lola and Jay. I hate that he liked Jay more than me, and I hate that Jay has just settled into this life. It’s not fair. I feel like I’m being taunted. He’s got this business card that says _H.J.S_ on it but I’ve no clue what it stands for. His computer is password protected. He kept photos of my mum hidden away. I’m so _fucking_ attached to him. I always have been, but I can’t talk to anyone like Jay about it because he’ll just mock me. He’ll tell me I’ve got issues.”

“Okay?” Callum said, wary of interrupting.

“But I do have issues. I’m so screwed up. I don’t know why my dad loved everyone else more than he loved me. And now I never will know, because he went off and died on me. I don’t know how I’m supposed to get closure.”

“The computer.”

“The computer?” Ben repeated. “I already said, it’s locked.”

“Well, we can get it unlocked. Maybe you’ll find something there? His job - _his life_ \- Ben, I hate to be the one that says it, but you told me from day one. _A week ago_ , you want to snoop. You want to know things. It’ll take time, but you’ll find out. I wish I could help you more but -”

“But you’re stuck in here?”

“Yes. I’m stuck in here.”

Ben nodded, He couldn’t stop thinking about how he and Callum had only known each other for a week. He couldn’t understand why he had the confidence he did, to offload all his misery to the poor man upstairs. He couldn’t dissect the situation; of why Callum was wanting to help. He looked down at his teacup, barely touched, and his phone beside it.

“I need to piss.”

Callum flinched slightly but nodded his head in the direction of the hall. “Don’t worry.” He said, “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.” There was a sort of half-hearted chuckle, that Ben couldn’t quite bring himself to reciprocate.

A wood-framed mirror with a frowning Ben stared at him as he relieved himself. Ben had found his way to the spare toilet, instead of the bathroom that was accessible through Callum’s bedroom and was thus much more cramped than he would have hoped. The ceiling was sloped, and the only light fixture - a bare bulb - protruded above the backsplash behind the sink, meaning that heavy shadows cast across his face, and he could see his pores in all their glory. Ben thought he looked tired, and old, and maybe a little bit more like his dad. Again, he thought about his hairline.

On the mirror was a post-it note with a bunch of tallys; four vertical, one diagonal, four vertical, one diagonal, four vertical, one diagonal and so on. Below those were a set of initials and the word ‘ _milk_ ’ _._ Something pulled inside of Ben. He didn’t understand how he felt, nor how to describe it. He knew _fixing_ was the wrong word, and internally scolded himself for even thinking it. He just wanted to be there. To be in Callum's life. To be one of those well-carved routines. 

Ben flushed and turned to the sink. His eyes trailed down to the cabinet doors and wondered whether he should open them. There were three pieces of masking tape holding them down. He probably shouldn’t. He washed his hands, and tried not to think about the constant dripping as the tank on the toilet filled slowly back up, nor how he imagined it might make Callum feel. 

He thought about his dad, and about getting the computer unlocked. The toilet was still dripping. Ben weighed his options. It wouldn’t be absurd to assume a toolkit might be kept under the sink in the spare toilet. And by fixing the toilet he’d be doing Callum a favour. He pulled the tape away and opened the door to find a clear toiletries bag filled with aftershaves, tins and a razor. Ben closed the door quickly and rubbed at the scruff on his neck. He replaced the tape and left the room.

When Ben walked back into the kitchen, Callum had somewhat of a sheepish look on his face, which made Ben frown. He already had too much on his mind, and Callum pulling yet another expression he hadn’t seen before meant Ben would have to start all over, trying to work him out. 

It turned out he didn’t need to.

“Your phone rang.” Callum said simply. “I didn’t touch it, because, well…” He gestured to himself. “But someone called Duncan called. And then texted. Twice. You know, you can go into settings and change it so the message can’t be read from the home screen? It’s a lot more secure and it means that people can’t just glance over and read it.”

“Or other people could just choose to not read it.”

“Yes.”

“Did you read it?”

“Yes.”

“What did it say?”

“ _Want to fuck_.” Ben choked on air. He had not expected it to say that, or if it had, for Callum to quote so...directly. Still, there was something in the way he said it that practically turned Ben’s legs to jelly. He knew he needed to think of a retort, and fast.

“I mean, if you’re down.” Ben did not mean to say that. That was quite possibly the worst thing he could have said in that situation. Callum’s ears went pink.

“No, I mean, that’s what - you asked what -”

“I’m joking, Callum.” Ben grinned, composing himself subtly as he picked his phone up from the table, reading the texts. 

“ _Hey, maybe we can grab coffee sometime?”_ He reads. “ _You free today, coffee?, or a drink?_ ” and then “ _Clearly that approach isn’t working, Want to fuck?”_ Ben scoffed, “Who said romance is dead, eh?”

“It’s been used literally and ironically since the late eighteenth century,” Callum said simply.

“What? Ben asked.

“Nothing,” Callum says. “Is Duncan your boyfriend?”

Ben didn’t like the way Callum said his name as if it were important. But then again Callum didn’t know any better. “No.” Ben said, setting the record straight. “I don’t do boyfriends.”

Callum nodded, then suddenly became fascinated with a coffee ring on the wood of the table. Ben wondered why he hadn’t cleaned it off at some point. “Have you ever done boyfriends?”

“I did. Once I did.” Ben says. The conversation was getting a little too personal.

“But not anymore?” 

“No.” Ben says. Callum doesn’t press him for more. “Do you do boyfriends?”

Callum shakes his head. “Who’d want to date me? Not that I have any experience, but I’m sure a candlelit dinner next to a tower of boxes isn’t quite as romantic as the Eiffel.”

Ben laughed, “Fair enough, but what if it helps you? You know, having someone to rely on?”

“Says the guy who _doesn’t date_? How can I be sure the guy isn’t just like you? In it for the, you know? Sex.”

Ben tried to pretend that didn’t hurt; words coming from Callum often felt like opening the curtains with a hangover. 

“I can’t deal with someone else's instability,” Callum said, not noticing Ben’s change of demeanour. “I can barely cope with my own. Imagine having twice as much stuff, twice as many guests, twice as many -”

“Okay, okay. I get it. You have _plenty_ of reasons not to date, but the whole world is on the internet now, why don’t you...hook up? You wouldn’t even have to leave the flat.”

Callum shook his head, “I don’t want that. I think that sex should be...special? Mean something.”

Ben snorted, “You sound like a thirteen-year-old virgin.” Callum shifted a little, “Oh, you are a virgin? That makes sense.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” Ben says, “But you’re right. I reckon it’s on a whole other level when you trust the person. However-” He says, slapping his knees in a way he noted internally as _rather Phil_ , “A quick shag is better than no shag at all. And if you want all that extra-special-flowers-and-candles shit, then you need to open up and trust someone in a relationship. Something we’ve both admitted to being incapable of.”

“You never said you were incapable. In fact, you said you dated-”

“Well, I don’t anymore.” Ben states. “But come on, we need to deflower you. Maybe I can cruise out in the bars and bring the top three candidates back? Do it _Blind Date_ style?”

The corners of Ben’s lips turned up a little as he snuck a glance at Callum, who was shaking his head and blushing deeply, his ears turning a deep beetroot.

“No, no that won’t be necessary.”

“So you just want to stay alone?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

Ben tutted, frowning. “No,” He said, “No I don’t believe that. Everyone has a choice.”

“Okay fine. I’ll go on a date when I leave the house.” That was the end of that. 

Time seemed to move faster when they weren't talking, and still, Ben couldn’t help but study Callum’s face, as his eyes flicked to his hands, or the newspapered window. Ben knew it was time to leave, that in the evening light he might just melt if he stayed there any longer. He’d take the computer to the shop in the morning. He thought about ringing Duncan. He thought for a moment that he wouldn’t, but he knew it was inevitable. That Callum was right when he exclaimed that _that was the kind of person Ben was_ . He thought about internally calling himself a _slag_ , but finds no reason to hurt his own feelings. He gets up.

“Ben,” Callum says. 

Ben turns in the hallway to look back at Callum. With the way he stood there, leaning in the door frame, the light filtering in like a halo behind his head, he looked rather beautiful. _What sort of word choice was that?_ Ben frowned. He didn’t normally see men as being beautiful, but at that moment, it seemed to be the only word that truly fit. Callum was wearing a pair of grey joggers and a red jumper with some big cat on the front. He looked odd, but nothing close to the man Ben had met on his first night in the flat. He thought about how intrigued he was back then, and if anything, that level had increased. He realised he was staring. 

“What is it?” He asked, looking Callum in the eyes.

“I would like the photo album back if you don’t mind?”

“Oh.” Ben felt his stomach become knotted. “I gave it to Lola.” He lied. “Like you said.”

Callum seemed happy with that, raising his chin in a minuscule nod. “Ah, that’s okay then. Have a good evening. And have a good date, if you do decide to go on it.”

“Not a date.” Ben corrected, feeling sick. “But I’ll keep you updated.”

“I’d rather you didn’t” Callum smiled, before retreating into his flat, the door closing almost the whole way, but not quite. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello :) I hope you are doing well xx

**Author's Note:**

> I thrive on comments


End file.
